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EMPTY CHURCHES, 



HOW TO FILL THEM. 



REV. J.- BENSON HAMILTON. 



SECOND THOUSAND. 



PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR. . 



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PHIDIjIPS dt HUNT, 
SOS BROADWAY. 

1879. 



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Copyright 1879, by 

REV. J. BENSON HAMILTON, 

New York. 



The Library 
of Congress 

WASHINGTON 



IDBDICA.TB3D 

TO 

REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, THE AMERICAN SPURGEON, 

AND 

REV. C. H. SPURGEON, THE ENGLISH TALMAGE, 

EACH OF WHOM IN HIS OWN WAY IS A PRINCE AMONG GOSPEL. 
" SENSATIONALISTS." 



EMPTY CHURCHES, 

AND HOW TO FILL THEM. 



" Hearken to me ; I also will shew mine opinion." 
Job xxxii, 10. 

This book is issued neither to gain notoriety 
nor to make money. " How to evangelize the 
masses " is the most vital religious problem of 
the times. The author seeks to direct attention 
to the necessity of more earnest effort in win- 
ning the multitude to the house of God and 
invite discussion as to the best method of ac- 
complishing it. His ministry has been brief — 
but a single decade — yet it has been suggestive 
and instructive in the line of the present dis- 
cussion. His mission has been similar to that 
of the prophet : he has been called to proph- 
esy to dry bones, and jfe/ the bones. What 
may seem to some but vagaries are the results 
and outgrowth of experience. The following 



6 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

pages contain a brief and condensed statement 
of principles and methods which have achieved 
remarkable results ; appended is a short sketch 
of the working and outcome of the methods, 
and a sample of the instruments used. Criti- 
cism is expected and desired. A communica- 
tion addressed to the author suggesting a bet- 
ter way to fill our " empty churches " will be 
gratefully received as a special favor. 

An invitation to preach before the Ministe- 
rial Association of the Lewiston District, 
Maine Conference, first led to shaping the 
thoughts now given to the public. 



II. 

" Why is the house of God forsaken ?" Neh. xiii, n. 

An old recipe for cooking a hare is, " To 
cook a hare, first catch it." The motto of the 
modern minister should be, " To save men, 
first 'reach them." That the Church has lost 
its hold, to a large extent, upon the masses is 
no longer a debatable question. The class of 
non-church-goers is large, well-to-do, intelli- 
gent, and rapidly increasing. With an elo- 
quent, cultured, earnest, and spiritual minis- 
try ; church edifices numerous, comfortable, 
tasty and commodious ; a church member- 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. y 

ship large, zealous and rich, we fail to more 
than half fill our church seats Sabbath after 
Sabbath. It is freely asserted, and can doubt- 
less be proved to be too true, " that the 
churches will not average a congregation 
equal to their enrolled membership." A care- 
ful examination of the newspaper, pulpit, and 
platform discussion of this question, embody- 
ing personal research, careful inquiry, and a 
wide experience, establishes as true the as- 
tounding statement that not more than one 
in five of our Protestant population are regu- 
lar attendants upon religious worship.* Half- 

* The following is taken from the New York Christian Ad- 
vocate, June 19, 1879 : — 

It is claimed that less than ten churches in Brooklyn are 
crowded. Most are only partially filled. The reports from 
New York are but little better. Brooklyn has 600,000 popu- 
lation. Of these, 529,000 are Protestant or non-Catholic. 
. She has provided 225 Protestant churches and missions, with 
a seating capacity of 115,000. On a pleasant Sabbath these 
churches contain only 60,000, (counted.) Thus 469,000 Prot- 
estants are absent from church each Sabbath. If it is al- 
lowed that only about one half of the people of a community 
can reasonably attend church at any one time, we still have 
about 175,000 wandering about, or lounging and spending 
the Sabbath in sinful ways, while only 60,000 are found in 
their places. This is Brooklyn, the city of churches. If they 
do this in the green tree, what will they do in the dry? 

The record of New York is not the most encouraging. She 
has a population of 1,100,000. Of these, 922,000 are Prot- 
estant, or non-Catholic. She has 319 Protestant churches 
and missions, with a seating capacity of 170,000. On a pleas- 



8 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

empty churches have become accepted as the 
general rule, and the exceptions are occasional 
and marked. The preacher who fills his church, 
unless gifted with rare genius, is suspected of 
doing something foolish or improper. " Sen- 
sationalist " becomes the anathema of the 
Church and the epithet of the world. An 
able and earnest Methodist preacher said, a 
little snappishly, in reply to a remark about 
the large attendance upon the ministry of a 
brother, 

" A monkey and a hand-organ can draw a 
crowd any time." 

The remark was true ; but the brother who 
made it will never be able to do it without 
them unless he radically changes his methods. 
It is not an unworthy ambition to have, as the 
Master did, a multitude lend a willing and at- 
tentive ear to the gospel message. An empty 
church is a banquet without guests. The gos- 
pel feast is ready, but the guests have not ar- 
rived. We have made extra exertions, but are 
still compelled to say to the Master, " Yet 
there is room." 



ant Sabbath 90,000 can be found in the church, leaving 
about 370,000 of the church-going half to wander and find 
lest and entertainment where Satan may lead them. Thus 
in these two great cities about one fifth of the half who, in 
spite of children and family cares and sickness, might go, do 
actually find their way into the house of God. 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 9 

The Master replies : " Go out into the high- 
ways and hedges, and compel them to come in, 
that my house may be filled? 



III. 

" Beautiful for situation is Mount Zion, the city of the great 
King." PsA. xlviii, 2. 

Any location is popularly supposed to be 
good enough for a church. A site in an unde- 
sirable locality, on a back street, away from 
the populous portion of the community, is 
gladly accepted as a gift, or at a low price. 
The church is built, and we wonder at the thin 
and straggling congregations we are able to 
gather. If the trustees who built the church 
were to build a business block, hotel, or a 
public hall, the last place they would select 
would be the church site. The block would 
be built where business is, not where they want 
to draw it ; the hotel would follow the travel ; 
the public hall would be located where it 
would be easy to draw a crowd. A round price 
would be paid for a good site rather than take 
a poor one as a gift. Many churches are to- 
day struggling to turn toward their doors the 
tide of souls which they turned from them 
by the criminal carelessness manifested in se- 



io Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

lecting their building lot. Fishermen say, " If 
you want to catch fish, set your nets where the 
fish run." An application of this principle to 
gospel fishing would greatly increase the haul. 
I went fishing once in a very beautiful lit- 
tle pond. I tried in vain for an hour to at- 
tract the attention of the fish, but failed to 
get a nibble. A countryman passing, I hailed 
him. 

" Halloo, neighbor ! What kind of fish are 
in this pond ? " 

He replied, with a grin : " Nothing but bull- 
frogs." 

I sought another fishing-place immediately. 
It matters little how much skill or persever- 
ance you manifest if there are no fish in your 
neighborhood. When Jesus called Simon and 
his companions as his disciples, he gave them 
an object-lesson in gospel fishing. Jesus said, 
" Launch out into the deep, and let down your 
nets for a draught." Simon answered, " Mas- 
ter, we have toiled all the night, and have taken 
nothing : nevertheless at thy word I will let 
down the net." At the first haul they inclosed 
so many fish their net brake, and they filled 
both ships so that they began to sink. The 
wondrous success attending the labors of these 
disciples when they became fishers of men is 
proof that the object-lesson was not in vain. 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them, n 
IV. 

" If there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, 
in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man 
in vile raiment ; and ye have respect to him that weareth 
the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a 
good place ; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit 
here under my footstool : are ye not then partial in 
yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts ? " 
James ii, 2-4. 

The majority of our churches are neither a 
credit to us nor an honor to the Master. One 
half the money invested with the same enter- 
prise and painstaking the building committee 
would have exercised in their own business 
would give us more desirable places of wor- 
ship. We have gone to two extremes. For 
the sake of economy we have been guilty of 
niggardly meanness. The country is dotted 
all over with shabby, uninviting chapels, with- 
out either beauty or convenience. The house 
of God compared with the home of the wor- 
shipers is cheap and bare. The other extreme 
is reckless expenditure and pinchbeck display. 
Gorgeous temples of ornate architecture, loud 
and lavish decorations in fresco and uphol- 
stery, are erected as monuments of vulgar 
pride and worldly selfishness. Generally in- 
spired by pride without means, the temple has 
a lofty spire pointing heavenward, and a heavy 



12 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

mortgage dragging in the other direction. Ei- 
ther extreme is discreditable to the Church 
and dishonoring to the Master. Select the 
best site to be obtained, build a neat, tasty, 
beautiful, convenient, commodious house, and 
pay for it. A church debt is a bar across the 
door. It is like a slough in the highway over 
which is a sign, saying, " Deep mud here ; keep 
away ! " If you are groaning under a mort- 
gage, your cordial invitations to worship with 
you are suspected of being inspired by a will- 
ingness, if not a desire, to have other shoul- 
ders ease your burden. Our expensive church- 
es have largely been the means of committing 
us to the false and wicked system of selling 
seats in the house of God. It is common to 
have the dedication followed by the appraisal 
of the pews, and then dispose of them by auc- 
tion to the highest bidder. The most desira- 
ble are made the costliest, and often there is 
lively bidding for choice ; not that any one 
cares much for the seat, but for the estimation 
and appreciation which goes with it. We 
say to the man with the long purse: "Sit 
here in a good place." But we say to the 
man without a purse, " Stand thou there, 
or go up in the pauper's loft, the gallery." 
The last place where distinction based on 
dollars and cents should be made is in the 
house of God. The man who has a spark 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 13 

of self-respect, although he may be a devoted 
Christian, will worship God at home rather 
than sit in the pauper's pew. The indiffer- 
ent and worldly care too little for church 
privileges to pay roundly for them, unless they 
bring in return for the investment sufficient 
worldly advantage to pay. Your pressing in- 
vitations to them seem but the trader's bid for 
patronage, and they deal with you accordingly. 
If you offer them a free seat, they will repel 
the offer with scorn. They are able to buy 
what they want. Renting pews is bad enough ; 
selling them is worse. Many churches to-day 
are largely owned by private parties. They 
have loaned money to the Lord, and taken 
seats in his house as security. Strangers are 
invited to church only to give these persons 
opportunity to haggle with them about pew- 
rentals. The income is no benefit to the 
Church ; but pays a usurious interest to the 
pew-owner on his pretended gift. Church 
debts and the pew system are two of the chief 
obstacles which lie athwart the threshold of 
the house of God. If we will lift the first and 
abolish the other we will have taken a great 
stride toward the solution of the problem be- 
fore us. 



14 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 



" Many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who 
were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when 
the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, 
wept with a loud voice ; and many shouted aloud for 
joy : so that the people could not discern the noise of the 
shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the peo- 
ple." Ezra iii, 12, 13. 

We hear very much to-day of the failure of 
Methodism ; of the worldliness which is honey- 
combing her spiritual strength ; of the trumpery 
of pride, love of applause, personal ambition, 
and dependence upon mere human appliances 
of the pulpit, which has robbed it of the power 
of the fathers. The indifference of the masses 
to the Gospel is directly charged to the lack 
of ability and spirituality of the ministry. The 
Church has not a few " ancients," whose weep- 
ing is heard above the shouting of the great 
multitude. No intelligent, unprejudiced mind 
can for a moment compare the pulpit of to-day 
with that of the past and fail to see a wonder- 
ful increase in vigor, versatility, and effective- 
ness. To-day as never before has it power to 
sway and save the masses. There has never 
been a period in the history of the Church 
when there has been simpler, more powerful, 
or more spiritual preaching of the Gospel than 
the Church enjoys to-day. The sons have to 
compete with forces of which the fathers never 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 1 5 

dreamed. The latter came occasionally, to 
a people whose only intellectual recreation, 
entertainment, or stimulant was furnished by 
the pulpit. The preacher was the daily paper, 
the circulating library, the lyceum orator, the 
divine messenger, all in one. Little wonder 
the people flocked in crowds, gave earnest at- 
tention, and were so powerfully impressed. 
The sons address several times a week a peo- 
ple surfeited with the rich treasures poured 
into their laps by the press and platform. The 
press, pervading every hamlet and neighbor- 
hood, scatters the brightest thoughts of the 
world's wise men upon every subject, secular 
and sacred. The platform affords abundant 
opportunity of hearing the most brilliant ora- 
tors in their masterpieces. The preacher is 
thus embarrassed in seeking to create and 
maintain an interest in a familiar theme in 
minds overcrowded with a multitude of 
thoughts about novel and fascinating ques- 
tions, presented in the most attractive manner 
by those who bring the results of a lifetime of 
laborious and special effort. Little wonder 
that the average pulpit suffers by the compar- 
ison and fails to accomplish what is expected 
and demanded. That the ministry of to-day 
is able to command the attention it does is a 
marked tribute to its versatility and effective- 
ness. The spiritual condition of the Church, 



1 6 Empty Churches, Hoiv to Fill Them. 

its rapid and marvelous growth, its wide influ- 
ence, are unanswerable arguments in behalf 
of the piety and faithfulness of the preacher. 
An emasculated pulpit would inevitably beget 
a barren and powerless Church ; which no one 
but a few of the " ancients" imagines is our 
condition. To scout at the lightning express 
and long for the lumbering old stage-coach 
will not stay the progress of this rushing age. 
It is a pity our tearful friends did not live in 
the times for which they mourn. The Church 
cannot afford to be outstripped by the world. 
Its mission is to lead, not to follow in hailing 
distance. Literature has almost advanced to 
where it is capable of giving to the divine 
word its fitting place. Science has, by a suc- 
cession of dazzling leaps, but reached a point 
where it can see through a glass darkly, the 
foot-prints ©f the divine Creator, and measure 
his power and influence. When it shall have 
reached the summit of knowledge and the full- 
ness of discovery it will find already there the 
disciple of Jesus, who has been borne on the 
wings of faith to the mountain top toward 
which the philosopher has long been toiling 
with weary steps. 

The Church needs to make an advance all 
along the line. Let the sword of the Spirit 
be used not to split hairs, or spur up our lag- 
ging comrades, or hold in check the eager ones ; 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them, if 

but to smite sin and slay sinners. Where 
preaching the Gospel degenerates into denun- 
ciation of the weakness or wickedness of the 
pulpit or the Church revival services become 
dress parades for saints instead of battle-fields 
to sinners. We need not wonder that so few 
are slain. We busy ourselves too much with 
the manual of arms, and neglect campaign 
duty. If the lamentations of the "ancients" 
are well founded, we need not only a re-ordi- 
nation of the ministry but a reconversion of 
the Church. 



VI. 

" We forbade him, because he followeth not us." MARK ix, 38. 

Christianity is not a failure. The children 
of God are not a discomfited, disorganized 
mob, but a thundering and conquering legion. 
Yet their victories are not a tithe of what they 
ought to and may be. Sectarian difference and 
internal dissension stay our onward march. 
We lag when we should run ; we limp when 
we might fly. Denominational jealousy post- 
pones indefinitely the reign of Jesus over a 
redeemed world. As religious persecution 
has ever been the most bitter, so pious criti- 
cism and censure are the keenest and least 
charitable. A difference in manner and meth- 



1 8 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

od of work from commonly accepted standards 
is as sternly denounced and rebuked as diver- 
gence in belief. The laborer whose work is 
colored and shaped by his individual peculiar- 
ity finds himself tossed upon a stormy sea 
which the voice of the Master cannot quiet. 
The tempest is evoked by the disciples in de- 
fiance of the Master's rebuke and command. 
The Christian ministers who receive the most 
unsparing criticism and censure at the hands 
of their brethren are not the careless, dilatory, 
or unfaithful; but the untiring, the indefati- 
gable, the successful, whose only sin is in 
achieving success by unusual methods. The 
Church and the world take the cue from min- 
isterial associations and conventions, and the 
secular and religious press echo with the 
changes that are rung on " sensationalism " 
and " charlatanry." 

Is there no golden mean between excision 
and neglect? Can we not have exhortation 
to zeal and devotion without denunciation, 
misrepresentation, and excommunication ? 
Have we reached that state where we must 
stop the work of converting the world to 
Christ that we may lash each other up to a 
uniform method, discipline, or effectiveness? 
Is it not possible we may play the martinet in 
keeping straight our own ranks, and neglect to 
inspire an onward and aggressive movement 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 19 

which will break the ranks of the enemy ? 
Let us make an advance ; but upon the ene- 
my, and not upon the weak, dispirited, and 
unfaithful stragglers who hang upon our lines. 
Let us make a distinction between the enemy 
and our flying cavalry raiders, who by a brill- 
iant dash break a line of communication, or 
take by surprise an outpost of the enemy, and 
in an hour advance our campaign a whole 
week. 



VII. 

"Never man spake like this man." John vii, 46. 

The almost unbroken monotony of religious 
effort is one of the principal causes of the pop- 
ular indifference to the gospel. The platform, 
even in its treatment of the profoundest 
themes, finds a willing and attentive hearing 
because of the novelty of its treatment and its 
frequent surprises. The press has grown to 
enormous proportions in this generation. It 
now claims superiority over the pulpit, and 
boldly challenges it in its own hitherto exclusive 
domain. It will inevitably succeed in usurp- 
ing the preacher's place unless the pulpit, by 
accommodating itself to the popular tastes, 
shall renew its lease of life and power and 
make for itself, by the magnetism of personal 



20 Empty Churches i How to Fill Them. 

presence, a place in human affections the pen 
and type cannot fill. The press is fresh, spicy, 
and bold, even to irreverence at times, in its 
treatment of all subjects. When it becomes 
monotonous, or prosy, or timid, it immedi- 
ately loses its power. The people turn from 
the average pulpit to the press with but a 
half-concealed relish and relief. If we will 
carefully examine the style and manner of 
Bible preaching, we will be surprised to learn 
that the method of preaching most unspar- 
ingly denounced to-day is nearest to the Bible 
standard. How did the prophets preach ? 
Were their messages carefully-prepared essays, 
or dry and elaborate discussions, or naked state- 
ments of facts ? By no means. They were 
rude but graphic parables, intensely colored, 
profusely illustrated, and powerfully dramatic. 
They were sensational in its most exaggerated 
sense. Jesus, who should be the model of 
pulpit oratory, never preached a great sermon. 
He wasted no time in discussing abstruse, 
mysterious, and unexplainable dogmas. His 
sermons- were simple, familiar, off-hand chats 
about every-day topics. They were broken in 
upon by question or suggestion from the au- 
dience or his disciples. He founded divine 
truth upon familiar incidents or living facts. 
His ministry excelled that of his predecessors 
or successors in winning the attention, moving 



Empty Churches y How to Fill Them. 21 

the heart, and making plain and interesting to 
the multitude the word of God. His sermons 
were stories linked to a divine truth by the 
word " like." Is it not strange that those who 
claim to be his disciples have only words of 
denunciation and rebuke for the sensational, 
story-telling preacher whose ministry, like his 
Master's, is thronged by a fascinated multi- 
tude ? " The clerical mountebank," whose 
folly is only a faint imitation of his Master's 
method, should feel complimented at the re- 
buke and epithets so lavishly poured upon 
him. It was the compliment his Master re- 
ceived. The greatest danger of the hour is 
not sensationalism in the pulpit but the lack 
of it. The wide-spread and rapidly increasing 
indifference to the Gospel can only be arrested 
by returning to gospel methods. The secret 
of drawing a crowd is found in the preaching 
of Jesus. If the Bible could be made the 
standard text-book of homiletics and the con- 
versations of Jesus the models of gospel ser- 
mons, now, as in the past, the multitude 
would flock to hear the word. We want less 
formality, and more fire ; less system, and 
more simplicity ; less exegesis, and more 
Jesus. 



22 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them, 
VIII. 

" Give ye them to eat." Luke ix, 13. 

If the church is only half filled and a tide 
of the churchless drift by the open door 
somebody is at fault. The Gospel should be 
so proclaimed that men must hear, and, hear- 
ing, must obey. Lack of power is often the 
result of error, not of the heart, but the head ; 
not in spirit, but in method. None but a very 
hungry or greedy fish will be caught with a 
bare hook. You cannot wonder that a ban- 
quet goes begging if it consists of nothing 
but empty dishes. Is it not possible we have 
been expending our care and labor in making 
a tasty and elaborate display of our table-ware 
and cutlery, instead of spreading a bountiful 
feast for our hungry guests? If we have, we 
need not wonder that they prefer to go hun- 
gry, rather than attempt to satisfy their hun- 
ger by going through the motions of eating at 
our fiat feast. Is there not too much truth in 
the accusation that, after we have filled our 
tables by high-sounding announcements, we 
have nothing to offer our guests but hash or 
hard-tack, poor in quality, and little of it ? 
Jesus never disappointed. The hungry soul 
that came to him enjoyed a bill of fare, fresh, 
varied, and according to the times and sea- 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 23 

sons, and went away satisfied. It is not board- 
ing-house folly, but true house-wifely wisdom, 
to prepare such accessories to the feast as will 
create a relish for the food as well as satisfy 
the appetite. 

The average sermon is above the average 
head. The preacher is busy with his books 
and magazines, and becomes interested in the 
theories and vagaries engendered in the rare- 
fied atmosphere of the mountain top. He ex- 
tols or demolishes them, as they appear help- 
ful or hurtful. The people who rarely visit 
the mountain summit, but dwell and toil on 
its sides or in the valleys, wonder and wander. 
Speculative preaching, instead of the simple 
and practical Gospel, is responsible for many 
empty seats. 

Too much of our preaching is barren of re- 
sults because we have aimed the heavy guns 
of our artillery at the stars instead of souls. 
Our projectiles, which should have been solid 
shot or bursting bombs, have been only sky- 
rockets or Roman candles, making a grand 
display but ending in sparks and smoke. 
Brilliance can tickle, profundity can astound ; 
but simplicity and directness never will fail to 
interest and convict. 



24 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 
IX. 

" I AM hath sent me unto you." Exod. iii, 14. 

The province of the pulpit, in the popular 
estimation, has become circumscribed through 
our unfaithfulness. We are embassadors of 
God to a sinful world. We are content to be- 
come servants of those we are commissioned 
to lead and teach. The place of the pulpit 
politically, socially, morally, is at the head, of 
the column, as the recognized leader in every 
reform. Godless politics will overthrow this 
nation, as it has those whose ruins fill history, 
unless the pulpit shall make its power felt. 
The stigma of partisanship is generally suffi- 
cient to deter us from political preaching. 
Careful reading of the powerful blasts from 
prophets and apostles against national wick- 
edness ought to convince the most conserva- 
tive or skeptical that political preaching is 
Bible preaching. 

Temperance is too often unduly exalted and 
emphasized as a cloak to other sins, or as a 
stock in trade. Temperance tramps leap from 
the gutter to the front rank of the army of 
reform, and crowd aside the divinely appointed 
leaders. Although often vulgar, profane, vi- 
cious, and immoral, and guilty of every vice 
but drunkenness, their signature to the tern- 



Empty Churches, Hoiv to Fill Them. 25 

perance pledge is evidence of sufficient virtue 
to warrant them in denouncing the Church 
and ministry for half-heartedness and incon- 
sistency. The pulpit, instead of leading in a 
temperance reform based upon the Gospel, is 
content to serve in a campaign under the lead- 
ership of irreligious men very often actuated 
only by selfish and mercenary motives. It 
must co-operate in methods known to be hurt- 
ful, and whose results are illusionary. Effort 
is wasted, and golden opportunities are frit- 
tered away. If the preacher is faithful to 
duty he will seek to make the reform religious 
by basing it upon divine truth. He will be 
defeated ; the motto of modern reform is not 
Christ, but stick. The Gospel is unwelcome ; 
it is too sweeping. To declare its teaching, 
that he who is guilty of profanity or unclean- 
ness or immorality will go to hell as inevi- 
tably as he who dies drunk, will end the con- 
nection of the preacher with the crusade. By 
word or hint he will be speedily told that his 
room is preferable to his company. There 
are exceptions, but this will be found to be a 
faithful description of the temperance reform, 
born without the Church. Social corruption 
and dishonesty wait upon the pulpit for expos- 
ure and denunciation. If its voice is silent 
the world will soon condone the sin. If your 
ministry has nothing to do with the matters 



26 Empty Churches, Hozv to Fill Them. 

of this world it will be powerless for good. 
We need in every Christian pulpit a John the 
Baptist. We have diverged very widely from 
the Bible examples of dealing with worldly 
folly and wickedness. Too much of our 
preaching is based upon the theory, " There 
are no Jews in town ; give it to them ! " 

We denounce and rebuke the pride of Neb- 
uchadnezzar, the sin of Babylon, the treason 
of Judas, the ingratitude of the Jews, the cow- 
ardliness of Peter ; but we have little to say 
about the tattler, the scandal-monger, the 
hypocrite, the pew-owning rum-seller, the 
trustee distiller, the tippling steward, the dis- 
honest bankrupt, the social leper, the political 
fraud and bull-dozer. The house of shame, 
the licentious dance, the theatrical lazar-house, 
the vicious press, may all gorge themselves 
upon their helpless victims within the shadow 
of the pulpit, and we are silent. To declare 
the voice of God with regard to these soul- 
damning evils would be sensational. It is 
true it is the way all the Bible preachers 
preached, from Noah to Paul, but it is not 
proper or popular to-day. The sword of the 
Spirit is intended to be a Damascus blade 
whose keen edge, under the weight given by 
the arm of a giant, is to cleave from crown to 
sole. The weakest arm, when backed by the 
divine Spirit, has a giant's might. We make 



Empty Churches, Hozv to Fill Them. 2J 

the blade edgeless, or hide it in a scabbard 
and wear it as an ornament of dress parade 
rather than wield it as a weapon of war. Date 
the Gospel, the hour and place you preach, 
and declare the whole truth as if you were 
sent of God, and you will lack neither hear- 
ers nor power. 



X. 

" When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die ; and 
thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the 
wicked from his wicked way to save his life ; the same 
wicked man shall die in his iniquity ; but his blood will 
I require at thine hand." EzEK. iii, 1 8. 

A MAN seated himself upon the railroad 
track about dusk one evening to wait for the 
lightning express. A friend approaching him, 
and seeing his danger, warned him as follows : 

" My dear friend, the silver moon is gilding 
with splendor the hills and valleys spread out 
before us. Yonder rippling waterfall thrills 
with its entrancing melody the listening ear. 
The feathered songsters have sung their vesper 
hymns, and are now perched in silent repose. 
All nature, after the bustle and confusion of 
the day, is hushed and still. From her inex- 
haustible resources, man has gathered mate- 
rials which he has shaped into creatures of 
beauty and power. The locomotive hurrying 



28 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

across the continent with the speed of the 
wind is the creation of his genius. Upon the 
iron pathway, constructed for it, it moves with 
fiery impatience and resistless force. My dear 
friend, I entreat you, at your earliest conven- 
ience, take an excursion by rail to the mount- 
ains." 

The man sitting on the track was so wrapt 
in admiration at the beautiful address that lie 
did not move. As the speaker bade him good- 
night the whistle of the coming train fell 
faintly upon his ears. 

Another friend approached, and said : — 

" My dear hearer-ah, the place-ah, upon which 
you are sitting-all, is not a very comfortable 
seat-ah. It is intended-aJi, for anotJier purpose- 
ah, if you do not-ah, change your position-ah, 
my dear hearer-ah, I fear-ah, you will-ah, be 
put-ah, to a great inconvenience~ah. Good- 
night-ah." 

As he turned away he heard the nearing 
thunder of the rushing wheels. 

The brother of the man in danger now ap- 
pears. Taking in the situation at a glance, he 
rushes to him, and shouts :-*- 

"What! John I Are you sitting on the 
railroad track, and the lightning express almost 
due ? Get out of that ! You won't ? 
Man l dont you hear it coming ? Now it is 
just around the curve I The thrill of the rail 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. . 29 

warns you, you have not a moment to spare. 
Quick! See the flash of the head- 
light! Now it is in our faces! JUMP! 
FOR YOUR LIFE." 

If the man will not move, his brother will 
grasp him and, in spite of himself, tear him 
from under the hungry wheels. If he saves 
him just as the hot breath of the iron steed 
brushes his face as it sweeps by, do you think 
he will lament his earnestness or mighty 
effort ? 

If the Bible is true, souls are in danger. Je- 
sus, while not seeking to terrorize men's hearts, 
by an occasional sentence, like the gleam of a 
lightning flash in a dark cloud, revealed the 
terrible penalty hanging over the unrepentant 
sinner. Language, although Oriental imagery 
may combine with Anglo-Saxon keenness and 
invention, is incapable of even hinting at the 
possibilities of what it is to be lost. Sent with 
the divine message to the souls in peril, offer- 
ing life and warning of impending death, we 
can lisp of moonshine and waterfalls, or drone 
commonplace and meaningless platitudes. If 
the brotherhood of man and the reality of the 
immediate peril are permitted to sweep in 
upon and take possession of the soul, the 
heart will burn and the tongue will flame. 
Preaching the Gospel demands nervous, em- 
phatic, terrible, burning, tender, words. If 



30 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

you want to crowd your church build a fire in 
the pulpit. The fiery zeal and quenchless en- 
thusiasm of our fathers would seem a foolish 
eccentricity in this fastidious age. If we could 
add to our culture and versatility our fathers' 
mighty fervor and fiery, fanatical, zeal, popular 
indifference to the Gospel would disappear 
like a straw in a roaring furnace. 

At a recent session of one of our most impor- 
tant annual conferences I witnessed a remark- 
able and instructive incident. A young man 
of considerable local notoriety as a successful 
evangelist sought ordination as a local deacon. 
He had twice failed to pass the necessary ex- 
aminations. He was said, publicly, to possess 
inability to study ; privately, to lack inclina- 
tion. A suspension of the rules was sought in 
his behalf because of the wonderful success 
attending his ministry. An eloquent and dis- 
tinguished clergyman, who was an ex-college 
president and an author of national reputation, 
advocated the granting of the young man's 
request in these words : — 

" I have been honored by the Church with 
positions of responsibility; I have been con- 
nected with colleges about eighteen years ; I 
possess some critical knowledge of Hebrew, 
Latin, and Greek ; I have some reputation as 
an author. But I would give it all to possess 
the gift of this young man." 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 31 

Of course, the request was granted. The 
young man's power consists mainly, if not en- 
tirely, in deep piety, holy enthusiasm, devoted 
earnestness and fiery zeal for the conversion 
of souls, which a generation ago was the rule 
and not the exception in the Methodist pulpit. 



XL 

" The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sab- 
bath." Mark ii, 27. 

THE widely-prevailing and rapidly-increas- 
ing irreverence for, and desecration of, the 
Sabbath is vitally connected with our theme. 
Our churches are half empty, and a great 
crowd surges by their open doors seeking re- 
creation and rest by using the Sabbath as a 
holiday. How to turn the tide from the 
streets and fields to the house of God is the 
problem before us. It will not be done by 
wrathful denunciations of the wanderers. 
Those who are compelled by stern necessity 
to toil all the hours of the daylight, six days 
out of the week, in dark, close, and unhealthy 
rooms should not receive uncharitable censure 
if they take advantage of the quiet and rest 
of the seventh to breathe the pure air and 
bask in the sunshine as they stroll in field, for- 



32 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

est, or by lake or sea-side. We are to a large 
degree responsible for the evil. Unrestricted 
license ever treads upon the steps of tyranny. 
Sabbath desecration is the legitimate rebound 
from its wrong observance. Much of our 
teaching, both past and present, with regard 
to the Sabbath is false and hurtful. We have 
inculcated and enjoined an observance neither 
rational nor scriptural. The Jewish Sabbath, 
with its burdensome restrictions, was not, nor 
could be, transferred to the Christian dispen- 
sation. In the new dispensation, not one day 
but every day was sacred ; holy ; God's day. 
The day upon which Christ arose from the 
dead became the day of the week toward 
which every Christian turned with reverent 
and holy joy. It was distinct from the Sab- 
bath, and in time supplanted it as the day for 
worship and rest. The change was not made 
by divine command, but by human custom 
and law. The Puritan Sabbath was the result 
of an attempt to enforce a barbarous law in an 
enlightened age. It was a failure ; and in the 
rebound we tremble before the encroachments 
of the continental Sabbath. To remedy the 
evil we must cease our attempts to enforce an 
obsolete law, and in its stead create and de- 
velop a healthy Christian sentiment in favor of 
the religious observance of the Lord's Day. Me- 
morial day is set apart to remind us of what 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 33 

those whose memories we celebrate purchased 
for us by their lives ; it is the last day of the 
year when treason should be encouraged, or 
its boasts or apologies listened to. The Lord's 
day is set apart by the best Christian senti- 
ment, human custom and law as the day for 
rest and worship of our divine Redeemer. 
We should devote it, not to the things he re- 
buked or condemed, but to those things he 
taught, exemplified, and died to establish. 
Further than this we have no scriptural war- 
rant for going, or asking others to go. We 
have erred not only in our conception of the 
letter of the law but the spirit. On account 
of the growing custom of Sunday travel and 
excursions we have permitted ourselves to 
impeach our own record and discredit one of 
our most important institutions. The camp- 
meeting has been recognized for more than a 
generation as distinctively a Methodist insti- 
tution. From its origin, the Sabbath has been 
considered not too holy or sacred a day to 
preach the Gospel or lead men to Christ. A 
combined attempt is now being made from 
without and within to close camp-meetings 
upon the .Sabbath or abolish them. Those 
who champion the crusade from within, pro- 
fess to do it in behalf of the sacredness of 
God's day. They are honest, doubtless, but 
very inconsistent. At a session of a New 



34 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

England conference recently I heard a lengthy 
and heated discussion of this subject, pro and 
con. Many brilliant speeches were made, and 
learned arguments advanced upon both sides. 
I must confess I recollect to-day most dis- 
tinctly one remark made in favor of Sabbath 
camp-meetings. In answer to the objection 
urged that the camp-meetings held over the 
Sabbath were not successful, one speaker men- 
tioned one meeting that was successful ; one 
of the speakers who addressed the great con- 
gregation on the Sabbath with power and unc- 
tion was the leader in the debate against 
Sunday camp-meetings, and he had traveled 
on a Sunday excursion train to get there. 

Other denominations manifest great anxiety 
lest we shall suffer loss of spiritual power and 
bring reproach upon the cause of Christ by 
holding our camp-meetings over the Sabbath. 
We fear they would not lament very much the 
abolition of the Methodist camp-meetings ; 
especially the one that could secure the lease 
of the grounds. " The little one has become 
a thousand in a day." The camp-meeting is a 
capital opportunity, and capitally improved, 
to impress the land with the liveliness and ag- 
gressiveness as well as spiritual power of the 
" little one," which is still growing. We can 
well appreciate the friendly advice which would 
bid us annihilate or emasculate our camp-meet- 



Empty diuretics^ How to Fill Them. 35 

ing, which is our most aggressive movement 
for the salvation of the masses. After the 
flurry of the present agitation is over we will 
be content to attain to the shrewdness and 
spirituality of our fathers, and in the future, as 
in the past, make the Sabbath in the grove a 
battle day for sinners as well as a harvest day 
for souls. The thoughtless crowd may seem 
to obscure, by their folly and levity, the bless- 
ed influences of the day and services ; it is 
only an uncovering of the evil which exists and 
would find occasion and Opportunity if there 
were no camp-meeting, and an opportunity 
without a religious accompaniment. It is a 
great grief to many that the camp-meeting has 
become a great financial institution, and thus, 
indirectly, if not directly, necessitates a pecun- 
iary income which transforms the leafy temple 
into a mart for money-getting. No one imag- 
ines a camp-meeting is run for financial profit. 
The only profit desired and sought is to pro- 
vide for the necessary expense for present and 
future advantages. These are just as legiti- 
mate as ordinary church expenses. What 
would become of our Churches if they were 
deprived of the enormous stream of money so 
lavishly poured into their treasuries in pay- 
ment for services rendered or benefits obtained 
upon the Lord's day? He who is content to 
share the advantages of church privileges se- 



36 Empty Churches^ How to Fill Them. 

cured through sale or rental of church pews 
for Sabbath use has a very eccentric con- 
science to object to profit on railroad tickets, 
or even gate money, received on the same day. 
In many of our churches the Sabbath is far 
from being a day of rest. It is the most bur- 
densome of the whole week. There is a 
preaching service in the morning and after- 
noon, with a Sabbath-school service sand- 
wiched between ; the latter part of the day oc- 
cupied by two or three social services. Those 
who consistently and conscientiously partici- 
pate in all the church services are often heard 
to say, " Sunday is the most fatiguing of the 
whole week." When we fill the Lord's day so 
full that relish and interest are weakened, if 
not lost, we have committed a grave blunder, 
and furnished a reasonable excuse not only for 
neglect of divine worship, but Sabbath dese- 
cration. 



XII. 

" He commanded us to preach unto the people." Acts x, 42. 

In the multiplicity of services enjoyed by 
the modern Church it would be strange if 
there were not marked preference shown some 
one. The preference is as diverse as the char- 
acter of the individuals. Some freely say, 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 37 

" If I could only attend one service, it would 
be the Sabbath-school." Others say, " The 
class-meeting' is my meeting." Still others 
say, " The social prayer and conference meet- 
ing is to me the most blessed and profitable." 
The preaching service is growing less and less 
important to many in the Church. The tend- 
ency is toward one preaching service on the 
Sabbath, and that at the hour when the un- 
saved masses are least likely to be reached. 
The half-hour sermon is the only opportunity 
afforded the preacher to declare his divine mes- 
sage. The character of the audience insensi- 
bly gives direction to his preaching. As the 
congregation is largely Christian the sermons 
are prepared for their benefit. Very often any 
other kind of preaching is resented. " It is our 
Church ; our preacher ; we pay the bills, and 
the sermon should be adapted to us, and for 
our benefit." The opportunities for success- 
fully making a direct and searching appeal to 
the thoughtless or careless sinner are few. 
Exhortations to sinners, or denunciations of 
sin, seem, and frequently are, ill-timed and 
out of place. 

The undue emphasis laid upon the Sabbath- 
school and social service inevitably creates a 
tendency to belittle the preaching of the Gos- 
pel. The supreme hour of the week, when it 
is easiest to gather the floating crowd to hear 



38 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

the Gospel, is the popular and primitive " early 
candle-light." Yet this is occupied by a serv- 
ice whose principal and too often exclusive 
object is the benefit of the Church members. 
It is easy to see how far we have drifted from 
primitive customs when we find Methodist 
churches silent and dark, Sabbath evenings, the 
year round. In a dark, gloomy, ill-ventilated 
vestry there is held a mongrel service of song, 
relation of incidents, exegesis of mysterious 
or doubtful passages of Scripture, denuncia- 
tion of the coldness or lukewarmness of Chris- 
tians, exhortations to sinners, and an occa- 
sional long-winded prayer, whose ejaculations 
and pet phrases, by frequent and long contin- 
ued repetition, have become stereotyped in 
the head of the speaker and in the memory 
of the listener. The pastor sees the hour 
when he could easiest reach the ears and hearts 
of the unsaved souls spent in this service with 
unvarying monotony through the year. His 
only opportunity is to snatch a few moments 
at the close, and, in spite of the unfavorable 
circumstances, try to press home the gospel 
message he is commissioned to proclaim. The 
prayer or social service, in its place, and prop- 
erly conducted, is a mighty power for the 
strengthening and quickening of the Church. 
It cannot be a successful agency for the evan- 
gelization of souls. It is out of place as a 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Tlicm. 39 

Sabbath service unless necessary to fill an hour 
when the Gospel cannot be preached. It is 
not a Methodist institution, as at present con- 
ducted in New England. It is a custom bor- 
rowed from the standing order. It is born of 
formality rather than spirituality. If the 
Churches which spend the Sabbath evening in 
this so-called social service could be induced 
to return to the primitive Methodist service 
the change would give us new life and power, 
and double our congregations, by turning to 
our doors the crowd who can be reached at no 
other time. Give us the old-fashioned preach- 
ing service at " early candle-light." Leave the 
close, dark, bare vestry, and go to the bright, 
light, cheery, carpeted audience-room. Preach 
a short gospel sermon, searching and tender, 
accompanied by the baptism which prayer will 
always bring ; let the people follow the sermon 
by a short social service of song and exhorta- 
tion directly in the line of the sermon ; let 
there be personal effort in conversation with 
sinners ; close the meeting by a service of 
prayer at the altar for, and with, souls. Such 
a service would be no novelty. It is only what 
our fathers used with such marvelous power 
and success. Not only would there be a large 
increase in the attendance but there would be 
surprising spiritual results. 

There are exceptions, of course; wherever 



40 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

the Church can preach more interestingly and 
more effectively than the preacher it may well 
do the preaching, not only Sabbath evening 
but all day; but the man who cannot preach 
better than the people to whom he ministers 
is out of place when he is in their pulpit. 
When Christ was planning to establish his 
Church he did not send out men to lead 
prayer-meetings, but to preach the Gospel. 
Prayer, exhortation, and testimony supple- 
ment the preaching of the word ; they cannot 
take its place. My commission is not to lead 
class, superintend a Sunday-school, conduct a 
social meeting, but to preach the Gospel. If 
that is the supreme design in my call, I ought 
to preach at the time and in the manner that 
I may reach the most souls. No one will dis- 
pute that the supreme hour of the week for 
religious service is Sabbath evening. The 
reasons are simple and yet convincing. Those 
who have strolled about all day, or are tired 
of being in the house, when evening comes are 
ready to go somewhere. Make your church 
service attractive and they can be easily in- 
duced to attend. The church never looks so 
well as when lighted and filled. There is a 
peculiar charm to singing and speaking by 
" candle-light," which is hard to explain. 
Lectures and concerts which fail by daylight 
are successful at night. 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 41 

One great advantage of the plan proposed 
is, it gives the Gospel the hour when the soul 
is most easily impressed, and when there is 
little opportunity for the impressions to be 
dispelled. The people disperse with the truth 
ringing in their ears. The subject of discus- 
sion in the home circle is the religious service 
just attended, and in the quiet hour the Spirit 
has a golden opportunity to clinch the nails 
driven by the preached word. 

But it is objected to this: "This is our 
meeting; the Church will not grow in grace 
if it has no chance to work." Very well ; go 
to work. Talk is not work. Growth in grace 
will follow far more from listening to a ser- 
mon thoroughly prepared than by the repeti- 
tion of commonplaces or disjointed exhorta- 
tions often interesting to no one but the 
speaker. This objection is most freely made 
by those who think it is the whole duty of the 
Church and minister to feed and nurse them. 
They care less for the salvation of souls or the 
welfare of the Church than they do to exercise 
their gift ; which, very frequently, is only the 
gift of continuance. 

The prodigal's elder brother, when the whole 
household was rejoicing because of the return 
of the wanderer, sulked and found fault be- 
cause he had been given no kid. His modern 
imitator does not scruple to retard or destroy 



42 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

a revival by his demands to be fed. He must 
have bread, although all the world starve to 
death. The Church that interests itself dis- 
tinctively in building up its own membership 
will lose its missionary spirit and become self- 
ish and indolent. In the closet, class-room 
and week-day social service you can labor, if 
prayer is labor. If you are consumed with a 
desire to witness for Christ or warn men to 
turn from sin, do it on the street, in the shop, or 
in your neighbor's house. The trouble is that 
to talk in meeting is the desire. Many who 
are heard there lengthily and frequently never 
talk of religion any where else. The Church 
in many places is developing a strange weak- 
ness for talk rather than power in prayer. As 
we grow formal and less spiritual we pray less 
and talk more. The great majority of the 
Church find it comparatively easy to talk, 
but very hard to pray. Prayer-meetings are 
opened by prayer, and then the time is occu- 
pied by speech and song. Upon this mistaken 
custom we may well charge whatever of failure 
there is in our labors, or lack of religious 
activity and spiritual power in our experiences. 
If we can return to primitive Methodist cus- 
toms, and make the Sabbath a day of preach- 
ing and studying the word of God ; make our 
prayer-meetings meetings for prayer and 
praise; go to class-meeting to relate our ex- 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 43 

periences ; we would feel the quickening within 
us of the old time vigor and power. Make it 
the supreme object of each individual Chris- 
tian life to win souls to Christ, and our mem- 
bership will be built up as it can be in no 
other manner. 



XIII. 

"Let all the people praise thee." PSA. lxvii, 3. 

PRAISE is essential to worship. Music is a 
powerful supplement to the preaching of the 
Gospel. Rightly conducted it will attract 
many who otherwise could not be reached. 
The Roman Catholic and Episcopal ritualist 
take advantage of the popular love of music, 
and make it the chief element in their worship. 
The sermon is secondary to the singing. In 
many instances the preacher is only an append- 
age of the choir. The house is crowded to 
hear the singing, but speedily empties before 
the sermon. We go to the other extreme ; 
we magnify the sermon and lightly value the 
importance of song in worship. Our average 
church music has little that is attractive 
about it. Often, indeed, it is considered im- 
proper, if not wrong, to attempt to make it 
attractive. Congregational singing imparts a 
charm to religious service very little under- 



44 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

stood because it is so badly managed. In most 
churches congregational singing is only nomi- 
nal. It is the only kind of music worthy a 
place in divine worship. But congregational 
singing is absolutely dependent upon choral 
leading and instrumental accompaniment. 
Every congregation should make a thorough 
drill of its song service. A competent leader 
should be secured who, while thoroughly fa- 
miliar with music, at the same time should 
have enough religion to keep musical effect 
secondary to the object of true worship. The 
pastor should be chorister in chief. Thorough 
musical training should find a place in the cur- 
riculum of theological study. There should 
be no possibility of a conflict between the pas- 
tor and the chorister. The former should have 
as exclusive control over the music to be sung 
as he has over the Scripture lesson to be read. 
A choir of sweet, powerful, well-trained voices 
is a necessity. The larger the choir, if well- 
balanced, the better. The musical portion of 
the services should be a varied selection of solos 
and choruses, reaching the climax in the shout 
of the whole congregation in a familiar hymn ; 
all in the line of the theme of the sermon and 
skillfully arranged so as to produce the greatest 
religious impression. An instrument to aid 
the choir and accompany the congregation is 
a necessity. A pipe organ proportionate to 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 45 

the size of the church is really the only instru- 
ment for Church purposes. An organist should 
be secured who is willing to fill a secondary 
place ; the average organist is impressed with 
the importance of his position, and feels called 
upon to roar and thunder and whistle and 
shriek until you wonder whether you are in a 
church or a circus. The voluntaries are brill- 
iant dashes from the opera or improvisations 
upon some popular melody, and far from cre- 
ating a reverent or religious feeling in the 
listener. In many churches a pipe organ is an 
impossibility. The best substitute is that 
which the organ seeks to imitate. In every 
village there can be found persons who possess 
musical knowledge and familiarity with some 
musical instrument, who would be pleased to 
contribute their skill and knowledge to relig- 
ious worship. A choir accompanied and sup- 
ported by an orchestra containing cornets, 
clarionets, flutes, violins, as many or as few as 
circumstances might suggest, would impart a 
fascination and charm to the church services 
that would be surprising and very attractive. 
The church ought to be the musical center of 
every community. We have made a great 
mistake in giving up to the devil not only the 
best music, but the sweetest and most popular 
instruments. The author can speak from ex- 
perience. For three years conducting religious 



46 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

service in a large opera-house with a congre- 
gation rarely falling below a thousand and 
often reaching two thousand, he found it nec- 
essary to have instrumental aid in the service 
of song. A large choir, supported by a well- 
balanced and thoroughly drilled orchestra, ac- 
complished the desired end with marvelous 
success. He has never heard any music so 
inspiring as the voices of the great multitude 
led by the choir and orchestra, all singing 
some old familiar hymn. Tact and persever- 
ance in utilizing the material to be found in 
every community where there is a church 
would soon fill the deserted sanctuary with 
the indifferent, who would be delighted, prof- 
ited, and saved. 



XIV. 

"I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly." 
i Sam. xxvi, 21. 

The desire for entertainment and amuse- 
ment is legitimate and natural and should be 
gratified. To draw the line between proper 
and improper amusements is the province of 
the Church. Guided by the teaching of the 
divine word, wide experience, careful observa- 
tion, and sober judgment, the pulpit should 
utter no uncertain sounds upon this question. 
Participation in or defense of amusements 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 47 

characterized by the Church as questionable, 
or improper, if not wicked, by a Christian, is a 
genuine surprise not only to the Church but 
to the world. The most thoughtless worlding 
is surprised and shocked to meet at the the- 
ater or cross hands in the dance with a pro- 
fessed disciple of the Lord Jesus. Gratification 
at indorsement of his own folly cannot hide 
the shock to his sense of Christian consistency 
or propriety. The popular amusements of the 
hour are vicious and immoral. The ball-room, 
with all its charms of beauty and sounds of 
merriment and melody, is the anteroom to the 
house of shame. The pleasure of the dance 
is illicit and sensual. It is an open and undis- 
guised effort to develop and gratify the bas- 
est passions of our nature. The charm of 
music and the fascination of motion blind the 
virtuous votaries of the dance to the indelica- 
cies and indecencies, the improper and licen- 
tious familiarities, which would be tolerated 
nowhere else. Men do not dance with men 
nor women with women ; they dance with 
each other. The charm lies in the permitted 
familiarity and personal contact. Could 
virtuous women read the thoughts or hear the 
coarse and vulgar speeches made by those who 
hold them in a close embrace as they whirl 
and leap around the room, they would not 
only burn with shame and indignation but 



48 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

would resent the next invitation to dance as a 
gross personal insult. 

The theater, with its glitter, and tinsel, and 
gorgeous display, has ever possessed an inde- 
scribable fascination. It is the charm of the 
serpent whose bite is death. The door of the 
theater is the open gate to hell. A portion of 
it is well called the pit. The modern drama is 
popular in proportion as it is evil in action, 
speech, or suggestion. The greatest admirers 
of the stage lament its tendency toward buf- 
foonery and licentiousness ; one of the greatest 
actors on the stage to-day will not permit his 
own daughter to attend promiscuously the 
better class of plays produced at the theater 
in which he earns his own triumph. The 
legitimate drama, without the attraction of a 
star of the first magnitude, is an utter failure. 
The play which fills the house to repletion and 
is honored with a long run is foolish or evil, 
and popular in proportion as it is either. 
Aside from the few great stars the persons 
who secure the most paying engagements are 
those who pander to the lowest passions of 
the people. Boston's elite and Harvard Col- 
lege do not honor even Booth or Janauschek 
as they do Lydia Thompson or Aimee. The 
popular play that is not based upon matrimo- 
nial infelicities or infidelities, seduction, or 
temptation to vice is the exception. It is 



Empty Churches, Hoiv to Fill Them. 49 

popular in proportion as it skirts the dan- 
gerous edge of impropriety in gesture, speech, 
or suggestion. The greatest danger of the 
theater is not the grossness of its vice, but its 
refinement ; not its deformity, but its grace. 
Let me briefly illustrate by brief reference to 
three popular plays which may be taken as 
samples of the better class of plays presented 
upon the stage. 

I attended a play in a theater of the first 
class. The character of the heroine was as- 
sumed by a lady of national renown, and said 
to be above reproach in her private life. The 
play was charming, the acting very fine. Not 
an improper word was uttered, and yet one 
scene, containing a whisper of vice as keen 
as a serpent's tooth, left a subtle venom 
which stings to-day. The heroine was enter- 
taining her lover in her private room ; tempted 
by her confiding affection he sought her honor. 
The passionate pleading of the man, the thrill- 
ing fervor of the woman, were so intense as 
to become realistic to the great audience, 
which applauded with a furore of enthusiasm. 
The young man, conquered by the pleading of 
his sweetheart, desisted from his dishonorable 
attempt. She professed to be so delighted at 
his generosity in ceasing to press his advantage 
that she compensated him for his disappoint- 
ment by renewing with him more freely than 



50 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

before her affectionate relations. Without this 
scene there was not an improper suggestion ; 
and yet in this scene the play reached its 
climax, and was indebted to it for very much 
of its popularity. The thousands who have 
beheld this play have been taught, " it is not 
dishonorable to attempt evil, but to accom- 
plish it." I attended the opera once, to hear a 
distinguished vocalist whose genius we all de- 
light to honor. The audience was select, as the 
admission was high. The opera was received 
with undisguised delight. The plot was in- 
trigue and counter-intrigue, all failing of ac- 
complishment, of course. The husband and 
wife were true to each other ; their lovers 
were pure only because the attempted crime 
was defeated by circumstances. 

Camille is a licentious and indecent French 
novel which is found in no respectable library. 
No decent woman but would blush to be 
caught with it in her hand. Yet it is trans- 
formed into a play with its deformity and vice 
partially and artfully glossed, and given repre- 
sentation regularly at the best theaters. The 
character of the heroine is a favorite role with 
several distinguished actresses, who by their 
preference manifest a strange obliquity of 
moral vision, not to say lack of moral princi- 
ple. The heroine is a vile strumpet. The 
plot of the play is laid in a house of ill-fame. 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 51 

The incidents are such as grow out of the as- 
sociation of such characters as frequent such a 
place. That such a play can receive en- 
couragement and indorsement in a Christian 
land is a stinging disgrace. 

The clergy are sharply censured for daring 
to criticise the evils of the theater, because 
they are not theater-goers. You might as 
well charge the dentist with incapacity to 
pull a tooth because he was not crazy with 
the toothache. The clergy are not the only 
critics of the drama. The enormity of the evils 
that curse the stage is so apparent that its 
friends have been compelled to acknowledge it 
by seeking its reformation. Aside from a handful 
of clergymen of the liberal faith, who have in- 
dorsed the reform as very much needed, no 
sympathy has been expressed by Christian peo- 
ple for the quixotic venture. The reform de- 
sired may be understood when we remember 
that the first play presented under the auspi- 
ces of the Theater Reform Association, and for 
its benefit, was Rip van Winkle, a glorification 
of shiftlessness and drunkenness. All Chris- 
tians of evangelical faith, both clergy and laity, 
arc fully convinced that the drama, like dancing, 
can be reformed only by annihilation. 

The natural desire for entertainment which 
seeks gratification in the evil ways so seduc- 
tively presented demands our attention. The 



52 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

Church is criminal in confining itself to the 
care of the soul and neglecting or ignoring the 
needs of the body. It has the power in most 
communities to control the better class of 
amusements, and put the evil under the ban. 
The power should be fully exercised. If all 
Christians and lovers of virtue and morality 
were agreed, and aggressive, the ball-room and 
theater would languish and die for want of 
support. If we were wise we would manifest 
the bigotry and intolerance of our fathers ; but 
let the iron hand which they laid upon the 
seeker for liberty in religion take by the throat 
the seducer to license in vice. Ostracize all 
participants in or supporters of shameful and 
vicious practices, socially, commercially, and 
politically ; let the editor who panders to the 
vicious and depraved tastes of the wicked by 
advertising the charms of vice and soliciting 
its support send his paper to the brothel and 
bar-room, but not to a single decent, respect- 
able, Christian household. If this policy were 
adopted the editorial tone of the modern press 
would be transfigured in twenty-four hours. 
Let the Church provide healthful and profita- 
ble amusements. Every religious society 
shold have connected with it an organization 
for the development and cultivation of social 
interests and to provide lectures, readings, 
concerts, and literary entertainments. We have 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 53 

so far revolted from worldly amusements that 
many of us have put under the ban all amuse- 
ments. Card and billiard playing have become 
so wedded to evil that we denounce chess, 
checkers, dominoes, and croquet. The theat- 
rical play is so vicious and harmful that we 
denounce tableaux and all kinds of personation. 
The indiscriminate commingling of the sexes 
in the abandon of the ball-room is so evil in 
tendency that we frown upon the freedom and 
hilarity of the social gathering. To enable us 
to judiciously select the hurtful from the harm- 
ful requires only average common sense. If 
we make our churches places toward which 
the people turn during the week for social 
pleasure, mental profit, and proper relaxation, 
the road will become so familiar and delight- 
ful that little effort will be required to secure 
their presence and attention upon the Sabbath 
at the religious service for spiritual profit. 



XV. 

" I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the 
house of the Lord." Psa, cxxii, i. 

If the question were asked of the average 
religious congregation, " How many invited 
some one to come with you to-day?" how 
many hands would be raised ? Not one in a 



54 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

hundred. The Christian who regularly, sys- 
tematically and persistently invites others to 
worship with him is the marked exception to 
the general rule. If the church services are 
of the most ordinary interest, five persons 
thoroughly in earnest can double the average 
attendance in one year in the average church. 

One man in one of our cities was so deeply 
impressed with the importance of inducing the 
great crowd of Sabbath-breakers to frequent 
the house of God that he resolved to do what 
he could toward it. He began personally to in- 
vite to his pew those he found strolling about 
on the Sabbath day. He was the means of 
leading one hundred young men to become 
attendants upon divine worship, many of 
whom were converted. A preacher mentioned 
this incident at one of his services ; a little as- 
sociation was formed by eight or ten of his 
members, and in sixteen months they had in- 
duced two hundred persons to attend church. 
One of the invitation committee alone secured 
forty. 

Every church ought to have an organization 
connected with it whose sole aim is to invite 
persons to attend divine worship. A commit- 
tee of a dozen could thoroughly preach the 
Gospel in every house in any large town or 
small city in one year. By dividing the place 
into districts, and systematically visiting, street 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 55 

by street and house by house, those who have 
no church home, cordially inviting to the 
house of God, and scattering religious litera- 
ture, hundreds would be induced to go who 
never think of it. They say : " I stay at home 
because I am not invited." A committee of 
those who cannot find time to visit can supple- 
ment this work by making an individual and 
personal matter of invitation about their work 
or wherever they find non-church-goers ; by 
reporting to the visiting committee the names 
and residences of those they have invited, 
the work can be followed up by others and 
cannot fail. This method has been of very 
great benefit in the ministry of the author. 
Within the past year very much of the suc- 
cess in filling our house is the direct result of 
personal solicitation. One man secured nearly 
every one in his room in the manufactory. 
Another at a recent service counted twenty- 
one young men present at an evening preach- 
ing service who came because he had pressed 
them. Another invited one of his shop-mates. 
He declined to go because his shoes leaked. 
" I will buy you a pair of overshoes if you will 
go." He then said his wife might not like it. 
" Let us go and ask her." Going to the house, 
the woman was found barefooted. Our shrewd 
and earnest brother said : " If you will not jaw 
your husband for going to meeting with me, 



56 Empty Churches, How to Fill Than. 

and if you will go once with him, I will buy 
you a pair of shoes." She promised to go, 
and not "jaw" her husband any more than 
she could help. The following Sunday even- 
ing I noticed by the smiling face of my brother 
that he was pleased. I went to him and said, 
" Mark, are your friends here? " He replied, 
with a smile that covered his whole face, 
" Yes, six of them." He introduced the three 
men and their wives, who had come with him 
that inclement evening over a mile to a Prot- 
estant place of worship for the first time. They 
expressed themselves greatly interested, and 
promised to come again. The following Fri- 
day evening cottage-meeting the new-found 
soul was persuaded to seek Christ. 

Tact and perseverance will never fail. In- 
vite, urge, plead ; refuse to take " no " for an 
answer ; make an engagement to call and ac- 
company the person to Church, and take him 
to your seat and introduce him to some one, 
but especially to the pastor, and you will be 
amazed at the result. 

The principal objection that will be urged 
to this plan will be : "I have no adaptation to 
such work." If you have not, get it. God 
saved you to have your help in saving others. 
Where there is a will, a way will be found. If 
your child was drowning and you needed help, 
would you be too bashful to ask for it ? If 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 57 

you feel the value of souls you will not rest 
without doing all you can to save them. The 
secret of the difficulty always found in press- 
ing this personal work is indifference. " As long 
as the preacher will feed me, and the Church 
will nurse me, I am content ; but to waken me 
from my dreaming, indolent childhood by re- 
quiring of me the labor of stalwart manhood 
is unpleasant and repugnant." 



XVI. 

" The children of this world are in their generation wiser 
than the children of light." Luke xvi, 8. 

" My success is owing to liberality in advertising." — Bonner. 
" The road to fortune is through printer's ink." — Barnum. 
" Success depends upon a liberal patronage of printing 

offices." — Astor. 
"Frequent and constant advertising brought me all I own." 

— Stewart. 

These are the words of men whose achieve- 
ments and accumulations corroborate their 
testimony. Advertising is every- where ac- 
knowledged as a vital necessity to worldly suc- 
cess. The many floating epigrams upon this 
subject are well recognized and appreciated 
truisms. 

" What is solitude ? " a Sunday-school was 
once asked. 



58 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

A bright lad immediately replied, " The 
store that does not advertise." 

" Why is trying to do business without 
advertising like winking at some one in the 
dark?" 

"You know what you are doing, but no- 
body else does." 

These may well be applied to the average 
church with fitness and force. Most of our 
churches are conducted with studious secrecy 
as to what is to come until the service reveals 
it. It is a foolish mistake if not a criminal 
blunder. Were it known each week what 
was to be the theme for the coming Sabbath, 
such study and thought would be given to 
it that half the success would be achieved 
before the Sabbath came. The common topic 
of conversation in the field, by the roadside, 
in the shop, around the family circle, would 
be the sermon to come. The announcement, 
and the talk about it, would advertise the 
service so that many who otherwise would 
not go to church would be induced to attend. 
When the preacher arises to present his views 
and the teaching of the Bible concerning a 
subject which for a week has excited the inter- 
est of every one of his congregation, he finds 
it easy to preach and hold their attention. 
Ignorance is the parent of indifference. The 
more a person knows about the subject to be 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 59 

discussed the closer attention will he give to 
its treatment. 

The columns of the secular as well as the 
religious press should be utilized wherever 
possible to attract attention to divine worship. 
Sunday advertising receives abundant criti- 
cism and censure. It is denounced and re- 
buked as the hateful and hurtful habit of the 
hour. Scathing and humorous attacks are 
made upon it by those whose ministry is inef- 
fective because it lacks sensation. If the 
keen critics would exercise half the effort and 
ingenuity to attract the people to their 
churches that they waste in useless criticism 
of how others succeed, their effectiveness 
would be more than doubled. He who 
speaks regularly to an empty house is poorly 
fitted to criticise the methods of his brother 
whose house is full. There is a limit to sen- 
sationalism. When it becomes drivel or bom- 
bast it ceases to be sensational and becomes 
ridiculous. What is novel is not necessarily 
nonsense. To announce that you have some- 
thing to interest the people at your church 
next Sunday may be novel, but it is wisdom, 
not folly. To mention your subject in ad- 
vance is by very many esteemed silly, if not im- 
proper; but the objectors never think of hav- 
ing a lecture without announcing it, and what 
it is to be about. To select as topics for an- 



60 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

nouncement strange and unusual themes re- 
ceives unsparing censure. Yet the marvelous 
power of the preaching of Jesus lay largely in 
the novelty of his theme. His subjects, com- 
pared to those of his coadjutors, were as ec- 
centric as those of Spurgeon and Talmage to- 
day. He talked simply, pointedly, and di- 
rectly about the little familiar sights and 
experiences of people in actual life. While 
the other preachers despised and denounced 
him he enchanted the multitude, and they 
followed him every-where enraptured with his 
teaching. Bible preaching is novel and eccen- 
tric. Prophets and apostles alike studied 
thrilling effect in every message. Peter's first 
sermon was a sensational presentation and 
startling application of the great tragedy of 
the crucifixion. Paul, who was a master of ora- 
tory, and not dependent upon the tricks of the 
mountebank for an audience, sought out how 
to be all things to all men that thereby he 
might win some. His tact and ingenuity, 
manifested in his sermon on Mars' hill about 
" The Unknown God," were the character- 
istics of his wonderfully successful ministry. 

But it is objected that this method panders 
to the curiosity of the thoughtless. If they can 
be reached in no other way, that is the gospel 
way. John the Baptist was the Talmage of 
his age. He wore a strange and unministerial 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 61 

garb ; his diet was savage ; his personal ap- 
pearance wild ; his style of speech foreign and 
fervid. He produced a remarkable sensation. 
All Judea went out to hear him. His solemn 
yet fiery eloquence vivified a half-forgotten 
dream of the past. He was Elijah. By his 
very peculiarities he accomplished in a few 
weeks his mission. Instead of hunting a con- 
gregation, his congregations hunted him. We 
cannot doubt that the leading and controlling 
impulse which induced the multitude to seek 
him and hear his words was pure curiosity. 
Jesus recognizes this, and does not rebuke it. 
" What went ye out into the wilderness to see ? " 
he asks, and answers it by commending the 
strange preacher as more than a prophet. 
" Among those that are born of women there is 
not a greater prophet than John the Baptist." 
There are two classes in every community. 
To say to one, " If you will come to our 
church next Sunday you will hear something 
that will interest and profit you," is enough to 
insure their presence. To the other class 
such invitations will prove of no avail. To 
induce them to attend, you must convince 
them something unusual is to take place. 
With them interest begins in curiosity. To 
make no attempt to excite their curiosity is 
to leave them without the Gospel. If you 
secure their attendance once, and they are 



62 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

interested, it will be easier to induce them to 
come again. The ministrations of the pulpit 
must be novel and unusual if public interest in 
them is to be maintained. When people begin 
to say, " I do not care to go to church ; I have 
heard the preacher several times, and it is the 
same thing over and over," you need not won- 
der at empty seats. Make each sermon a 
surprise ; let each service rival the preceding ; 
avoid humdrum monotony. Even hungry per- 
sons will tire of stale bread ; at your gospel 
feast let the Bread of Life be fresh and warm. 
Use the worldly wisdom of the authors of 
serial stories : stop when others want you to 
go on. Seek to fascinate as well as feed. 
Careful and thoughtful effort and planning in 
this direction will make it comparatively easy 
for the average preacher and Church to make 
the coming of the hour for worship longed 
for, and the service eagerly attended. 

Newspaper advertising is not enough. This 
is the age of printer's ink. No man can suc- 
cessfully do business to-day and ignore the 
printer. Posters, circulars, and cards fill a 
very important place in worldly enterprise. 
The circus, theater and lyceum spare neither 
pains nor expense to inform every body of 
their attractions. The shrewd trader informs 
the whole community when he sells his old 
stock at cost and when his new stock has ar- 



Empty Churches, Hozv to Fill Them. 63 

rived. We need to-day in religious work 
the enterprise and push of the worldly wise. 
Every phase and movement of our Church work 
should be forced upon the attention of the com- 
munity. If those we desire to reach are kept 
intelligently acquainted with our plans and 
labors ; if they are invited to our churches 
with the same earnestness and persistence 
shown in worldly affairs by Christian people 
we will find the problem, " How to reach the 
masses," easily solved. It seems a little far- 
cical that we can be enterprising in managing 
a lyceum, or concert, or church sociable, and 
shiftless and stupid in our main work of bringing 
souls to Christ. The salvation of souls should 
be a business and not a mere sentiment. As 
we travel over the country we find staring us 
in the face, on board, stump, tree, rock, on the 
road-side, in the valley, on the mountain side, 
by the sea-shore, numerous mystic words. 
They are the marks of business ingenuity and 
enterprise. When the Christian becomes as 
earnest for God and souls as he is for himself, 
" sozodont " will give way to " salvation," 
" hair restorer " to " hallelujah," " bitters " to 
" Bible," and " hats " to " heaven." Rocks, 
fences and trees that now speak of earthly 
vanities will sing of eternal realities. 



64 Empty CJmrches, How to Fill Them. 



XYII. 

" Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to 
come in, that my house may be filled." Luke xiv, 23. 

When you have exhausted your resources 
still there will be room, and many who have 
not been reached. If they will not come to 
you, you must carry the gospel to them. We 
have become so decorous in our methods that 
these suggestions to many will savor only of 
folly. After you have tried to the utmost ad- 
vertisements, tracts, invitations — printed and 
personal — you will fail to get the attention of 
many whose souls Christ died to save. For 
reasons that need no explanation a large class 
of our people have a prejudice against our 
churches. They will not attend divine serv- 
ice in them whatever may be the attraction. 
To such the gospel must be preached by the 
way-side, on the street corner, at the sea-shore, 
in the mountain, in the woods. A systematic 
and judicious out-door campaign for one sum- 
mer, followed by popular revival meetings in 
halls and theaters in the winter, would revolu- 
tionize the country religiously. Going to lect- 
ure not long since in a small village I noticed 
in the public square a man surrounded by a 
large crowd. He had a bright light over his 
head and was declaiming at the top of his 



Empty Clinrches, Hozv to Fill Them. 65 

voice. He was urging the crowd to buy what 
he had to sell : " something which every fam- 
ily needed, and only ten cents apiece, or three 
for a quarter." He was selling knife-sharpeners. 
Out of door peddling is a familiar sight during 
the warm season in every city and village. If 
we were as anxious to supply the churchless 
portion of our communities with the gospel 
as these street venders are to sell their wares 
we could monopolize the public squares and 
street corners and find interested and appre- 
ciative audiences. Close the church one half 
the Sabbath day, and with a few singers select 
a desirable location where it will be easy to 
gather a crowd, and sing, and pray, and preach 
the gospel. Hundreds who will laugh at you 
will listen and may be saved. But, it may be 
urged, our camp-meetings do this out-door' 
work. The crowd nowadays goes to camp- 
meeting but one or two days during the meet- 
ing, and then the fascination of the out-door 
life so diverts attention from the object of the 
meeting that generally there is little practical 
benefit derived from the week. Were the 
camp-meeting portable, and, by the use of a 
large tabernacle, moved from city to city and 
village to village through each district, under 
the supervision of the presiding elder, its 
power would be increased a hundredfold. 
Plan a systematic and aggressive campaign. 
5 



66 Empty CJiurcJics, How to Fill Them. 

Select the places where the work is most 
needed. Divide the work and give each man 
that to do which he can best do. Let the 
preaching be about the necessity of seeking sal- 
vation through faith in Christ now; to-day. 
Found every sermon upon the one theme. 
Make the services attractive by the best music, 
both instrumental and vocal, you can secure. 
Canvass the neighborhood round about thor- 
oughly, conversing with every soul about re- 
ligion. Scatter religious literature like leaves. 
Make the revival the chief topic of conversa- 
tion on the farm, by the roadside, in the shop, 
and by the fireside. Follow up this campaign 
by revival services in the largest public hall to 
be obtained. One wise head, warm heart and 
strong hand, which every presiding elder ought 
to have, would in one campaign revolutionize 
a district as ten years' ordinary church work 
would fail to do. In these days, when debate 
about the benefit of the presiding eldership 
inevitably begets distrust of its usefulness, is 
there not possibility of removing the oppro- 
brium hanging over this office by making the 
incumbent, as in primitive times, a presiding 
revivalist and giving him the means»of visiting 
the out-lying and necessitous portions of the 
work in this evangelistic work ? The expense 
would be trifling compared with the results. 
If we can find money to evangelize the heathen 



Empty CJiurcJics, Hozv to Fill Them. 6j 

we certainly ought to be able to do the same 
for our neighbors. This work is distinctly 
Methodistic. The moment we unite with oth- 
er Churches, whose methods are antagonistic 
to ours, we are shorn of our power to a very 
great extent. Methodist preaching of Meth- 
odist doctrine, supplemented by Methodist ex- 
hortation and singing, will move the masses to- 
day as it did when our fathers, with Bible and 
hymn book, on horseback, swept over the land 
like flaming torches, kindling everywhere they 
went living fires which still are burning. The 
explosive enthusiasm of the fathers is not 
hereditary. The sons do not shout ; they do 
not flame ; but they can be the spark which 
shall fire others. When a lad I delighted with 
my comrades in celebrating our national anni- 
versary with the noisy fire-cracker. Punk was 
as necessary as the fire-works themselves. 
The slow match did not sputter or fizz, but 
simply kept the fire alive to explode the 
cracker. If we do not shout ourselves, let us 
have so much of the fire in our hearts that all 
who come in contact with us shall go off. 



68 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 



XVIII. 

"He brought me forth also into a large place." PSALM 
xviii, 19. 

AFTER a great battle, before the smoke-cloud 
has lifted, exaggerated, false, or mistaken re- 
ports are borne far and wide upon rumor's 
sweeping wings. There is no appeal but to 
history. It disproves the falsehood, and cor- 
rects the exaggeration or error. The following 
pages are history. 

In the spring of 1875 the author was trans- 
ferred from the New England Conference of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church to the New 
Hampshire Conference, and was appointed 
pastor of the newly organized Tabernacle 
Church in Manchester, N. H.,*at the earnest 
solicitation and urgent request of the Presiding 
Elder of the Concord District. " Music Hall," 
seating in the neighborhood of one thousand 
persons, was secured as a place of worship. 
In all the city there was not a place of worship 
opened Sunday evening but for the social 
meeting, which in all the churches was very 
thinly attended. The greater portion of the 
population never entered a place of worship. 
A series of popular Sunday-evening services 
was inaugurated. The result was simply 
amazing. " Music Hall " was crowded to over- 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 69 

flowing. " Smyth's Opera-house," seating 
over fifteen hundred, was secured, and packed 
every Sabbath evening for months. Upon 
special occasions, after all the standing room 
was filled, hundreds were turned away for lack 
of room. Gen. Natt. Head, now Governor of 
the State, on one occasion with his wife rode 
eight miles in a sleigh to attend one of the 
services. Going to the entrance an hour be- 
fore the time services were announced, he 
found many already waiting for the doors to 
be opened. He was soon in the midst of a 
dense throng, packing the halls and vestibules 
of the Opera-house and crowded out into the 
street. He looked at his watch to see how 
long it took to fill the house when the doors 
were opened. In five minutes the house was 
packed. 

At the close of the second year Bishop Peck 
visited Manchester and preached on Sabbath 
evening. For the first time in the history of the 
city a representative Methodist had the ear of 
the city. Before the service Gov. Cheney, Ex- 
Gov. Smyth and Judge Cross, three of the 
most influential citizens, met the bishop in the 
parlor of the Opera-house, and voluntarily 
gave the highest testimonial to the influence 
and beneficial results of these Sunday evening 
meetings. The bishop delivered one of his 
most powerful sermons to an audience filling 



Jo Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

the Opera-house, and comprising such a rep- 
resentation of the business, professional, and 
social elements of the city as rarely ever is 
gathered in that place at a religious service. 
Going from the hall he said again and again, 
" What a wonderful congregation ! " Before 
reaching Manchester he had been impressed 
with the rumor that the service was secular 
and sensational rather than religious. But 
the testimony borne by persons above partisan 
feeling and his own observation convinced 
him he was mistaken. He said, " The meth- 
ods are not what I would use ; but perhaps 
without them I could not accomplish the won- 
derful results. I dare not criticise. Work in 
your own way." 

The following extracts from letters and press 
notices will give a fair indication of the gen- 
eral estimation of the work and its results. 

Col. John B. Clarke, the veteran editor of 
the " Daily Mirror," the leading journal in the 
State, says : — 

I know Mr. Hamilton well, and know the size of the au- 
diences that usually attend meeting in New Hampshire. No 
settled pastor in the State ever had such crowds to hear him. 
For nearly one hundred Sunday evenings he has filled the 
largest hall in the State, to its utmost capacity, with apprecia- 
tive hearers. 

Gov. P. C. Cheney, " Centennial Governor," 
in a personal letter, says : — 



Empty Churches, Hozv to Fill Them, yi 

1 am very sorry to learn that by the rules of your denomi- 
nation you are compelled to leave your work here so soon. 
Your residence in our city, although quite brief, (three years,) 
has been in the highest degree creditable to yourself and 
useful to our community, thereby making your absence a 
cause of general regret. 

MANCHESTER PRESS. 

Mr. Hamilton is a bold, aggressive speaker, who allows no 
opportunity for attacking vice, wherever it may be found, to 
pass him by ; and he deals it such sledge-hammer blows there 
is no mistaking his meaning. — Sunday Globe. 

When you see a church and society seeking larger accom- 
modations, doubling its congregation, and all that with a 
minister who is called an incendiary, and who throws things 
around regardless of who gets hit, it is a sign that somebody 
means business. — Daily Union. 

Coming here a few months ago an entire stranger to our 
people, he organized the Tabernacle Church, occupied Music 
Hall till his audience became too large for it, and then moved 
to where he speaks to-night, the largest hall in the State. 
His following now is the largest of any public speaker in the 
city. — Daily Mirror. 

Rev. Mr. Hamilton has chosen a line of work entirely dif- 
ferent from that pursued by other pastors in the city. Disa- 
greeing with him as we do in some of his methods, we accord 
him full credit for sincerity, honesty of purpose, and com- 
mendable perseverance. That he has proven a firebrand, 
stirring to flame all the active elements of disorder and crime 
in opposition to his work, is by no means discreditable to 
him — rather it speaks volumes in behalf of his boldness and 
sincerity. Were lie a hypocrite, his crusade would have 
awakened in the breasts of rum-sellers no feeling but that of 
contempt ; were his efforts as feeble as those of the majority 
of the so-called ministers of God, they would have cared no 
more for them than they do for the summer breeze. But the 



J2 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

rum-power of Manchester both fear and hate him, and nothing 
that we could say would add to the praise this single fact 
accords him. — Saturday Night Dispatch. 



XIX. 

"And his name spread far abroad; for he was marvellously 
helped." 2 Chron. xxvi, 15. 

It will be asked, What was the secret of this 
marvelous success ? It was God using a weak 
instrument. The human share in the work 
was small and effective only through the pres- 
ence, power, and blessing of the Holy Spirit. 
The services were held in a large hall, and ev- 
ery seat was free. The music was congrega- 
tional singing, led by a large chorus and or- 
chestra. The grand effect of many hundred 
voices singing a familiar hymn was charm 
enough alone to fill the great audience room. 
The orchestral selections were of a high order, 
and finely rendered. The singing of the choir 
and an occasional solo by the pastor broke the 
monotony of the service, and added to the in- 
terest. The preaching was plain, pungent, and 
practical. It had to do largely with local af- 
fairs and incidents of daily occurrence. What- 
ever possessed the popular mind was seized 
upon and made the basis for the annunciation 
of a divine truth. Aside from the truth of the 



Empty Chztrches, Hozv to Fill Them. 73 

old saying, that " Where a crowd goes a crowd 
will go," the vital secret consisted in liberal 
and persistent advertising. The city press 
found it to their interest to report very largely 
what was said. Frequent criticism of the 
methods adopted and words uttered appeared. 
With but one exception the criticism was fair 
and honorable ; and that exception was the 
best advertisement of all. One journal felt it 
to be its duty, although edited by Christian 
men, to malign and misrepresent for partisan 
purposes all that was said and done. Every 
criticism was welcomed and approved. The 
most exaggerated served a good purpose. The 
character of the paper which developed a con- 
scientious objection to ever making a fair or 
true statement was such that its opposition 
was the climax of compliment. Its praise 
would have been fatal ; its denunciation was 
worth a fair price per line. By posters and 
flyers the community were forced to give at- 
tention to what the Church proposed to do. 

The lax sentiment with regard to temper- 
ance which prevailed in the city compelled 
special effort in that direction. There was 
a rigid Prohibitory Law upon the statute- 
books, but it was shamefully ignored. The 
city never had men of sufficient integrity 
or moral courage in any branch of its city 
government to regard their official oath 



74 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

enough to give an enforcement of the Pro- 
hibitory Law other than spasmodic, farcical, 
and for partisan effect. 

Political power was so evenly divided and 
political feeling so bitter that such an aggress- 
ive factor as the liquor league held the bal- 
ance of power solely because of the indiffer- 
ence of the Christian and temperance people. 
The city marshal had the impudence to report 
but one arrest for liquor-selling in a year while 
hundreds were openly engaged in the business, 
and the principal ones had the audacity to ad- 
vertise their saloons in the city Directory. The 
principal objective point aimed at was the edu- 
cation of public sentiment upon this question. 

Early in the campaign the author was plain- 
ly and profanely told to confine his efforts to 
the Churches ; as there was not one in the city 
free from the entanglement of the traffic. 
Challenging proof of the assertion, he was fur- 
nished facts which showed there was too much 
truth in the charge. He called attention to 
the hypocrites by name, and announced their 
Church relations. He sought to be impartial, 
and thus honored representatives of the Bap- 
tist, Congregationalist, and Methodist Church- 
es. Of course such an impertinent and offi- 
cious meddling with other people's business 
created no small stir. A bitter and personal 
newspaper controversy followed with one of 



Empty Churches, Hoiu to Fill Them. 75 

the victims, a gentleman of high business and 
social position who, while professing to be a 
Christian and temperance man, was acting as 
agent for a house of ill-fame and drinking sa- 
loon. After the battle had ended by the re- 
treat of the champion of the bawdy house the 
cloud lifted, and the voice of the city was pro- 
nounced in an unmistakable manner on the 
side of Christian and temperance consistency. 

The effort of Rev. Mr. Hamilton to purge the Churches of 
this city from all taint of connection with the liquor traffic is 
one which, by its very boldness, deserves and should receive 
the support of all earnest temperance men. It strikes at the 
root of the disease, and though to many who believe in 
smoothing over the sins of the Church members, while they 
deal sledge-hammer blows at sins outside the Church, the 
method may seem harsh, yet it cannot be denied that in the 
Church is where the severest justice should be meted out to 
those who cover their violation of law and of their professed 
principles with the cloak of religion. What the end will be 
no one knows. Mr. Hamilton has undertaken a herculean 
task, the result of which he cannot but await with anxiety. 
He has the sympathy of his own Church and that of a large 
portion of other Churches in the city, but the active support 
of his brother pastors we are afraid will be almost wholly de- 
nied him. The old way is so much easier and more comfort- 
aide, it is so much easier to glide along in the well-worn ruts, 
that few will have the courage to break away, and, girding up 
their loins for the conflict, attack the devil in their own 
churches. — Saturday Night Dispatch. 

The above editorial fairly voices the public 
sentiment of the better portion of the com- 
munity at the time. 



y6 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 
XX. 

" [They] took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, 
. . . and set all the city on an uproar." Acts xvii, 5. 

THE reform movement accomplished a great 
work. Hundreds were induced to sign the 
pledge. The author heartily engaged in the 
work, and contributed largely to the success. 
The movement was based alone upon moral 
suasion, and confined itself to the work of re- 
deeming the drunkard. The author, while 
thoroughly indorsing moral suasion as the only 
possible agent to reform the drunkard, advo- 
cated the absolute necessity of applying legal 
suasion to the drunkard maker to secure the 
fruits of the victory so grandly won. Strange 
to say, this common-sense proposition was re- 
pelled by the leaders of the temperance re- 
form, and scouted as detrimental and danger- 
ous to the reform movement. Enforcement 
of the law was claimed to be the duty of 
the authorities and not of individuals. Polit- 
ical partisanship, dread of the strength of the 
liquor power and pretended doubt of the prac- 
ticability of the attempt combined to discredit 
and overthrow the legal suasion movement. 
To test the law, measure the resources of the 
liquor league and establish a precedent, the 
author personally prosecuted several of the 
leading liquor sellers. The whole city was 



Empty CJiarches, Hozv to Fill Them. 77 

stirred. The saloon-keepers as a unit resisted. 
Brilliant and astute attorneys defended the 
criminals, and sought by every possible device 
to escape conviction. Temperance men sneered 
or reviled ; reformed men denounced. The 
wriggling criminals threatened. The author 
was privately notified of a projected personal 
assault upon him. He announced to a con- 
gregation of two thousand, upon reception of 
the information, that the assailants would do 
well to be ready for the other world ; he would 
do what he could to help them into it. The 
assault was never attempted. Threats, jeers, 
and curses were unavailing. Every man was 
convicted, and several hundred dollars in fines 
and costs were collected. The share belong- 
ing by legal provision to the prosecutor was 
not claimed. The author paid his own ex- 
penses. A few selections from the press will 
give an idea of the public sentiment : — 

Mr. Hamilton lays the traps that catch the flies, and hov- 
ers around the court-room, collecting and keeping together 
the witnesses, and seeing that none of them are spirited away 
or affected with any weakness of the backbone ; giving points 
to counsel, and making such suggestions as to the conduct of 
the case as seem to him necessary for its success. Beset with 
difficulties and annoyances of all kinds, he is active and un- 
tiring in his work, never discouraged, no matter how hopeless 
may appear, and looking more like an attorney than 
a minister of the Gospel. While his success in enforcing the 
Prohibitory Law has been thus far any thing but flattering, 
and must have very much shaken his confidence in politi- 



78 Empty Churches, Hozv to Fill Than. 

cians, whatever their political complexion may be, he seems 
to lose no faith in the justness of his cause or its final tri- 
umph. — Sunday Globe. 

While the excitement in regard to the Morse liquor case 
was at its height, a gentleman of this city looked into a store 
where R.ev. Mr. Hamilton was standing, and spoke his name. 
Mr. Hamilton came forward from the dim light of the inte- 
rior and asked what was wanted. " O, nothing in particular," 
replied the man ; " only I had never seen you to know you, 
and I wanted to be able to recognize you when you come 
into my place searching for rum." " O, certainly, certainly," 
replied Mr. Hamilton, stepping out upon the sidewalk. 
" Take a good square look at me. I am never ashamed to 
allow myself to be seen." The gent seemed satisfied and 
turned away, but in the evening he received Mr. Hamilton's 
photograph, with his compliments, and the hope the recipient 
would know him when they again met. We think he will. — 
Saturday Night Dispatch. 

It is somewhat amusing to hear those parties who have 
been so long railing at Rev. Mr. Hamilton for preaching 
without practicing, now turn around and cry that he is " out 
of his sphere," that he is meddling with what don't concern 
him, and the like. The fact is, Mr. Hamilton's course has been 
consistent throughout. He fought for the cause of temper- 
ance from the pulpit as no other pastor in Manchester has, 
and when the proper time came the rum-power found he was 
just as ready with blows as with words. He should have 
the active co-operation of every lover of temperance in the 
city. Of one thing all can rest assured : having put his hand 
to the plow, he will not turn back nor give up the contest 
until something definite comes of it — either a complete victory 
or an entire failure. The latter we don't believe is possible. 
— Saturday Night Dispatch. 

In commenting upon the author's reply to a 
criticism upon his liquor prosecutions, the 
Concord " Daily Monitor " said : — 



Empty ClnircJies, Hozv to Fill Them. 79 

We recognize in the author of the above letter a man of sin- 
cere and profound convictions, who possesses the physical and 
moral courage to maintain them at all times. We respect 
him accordingly. We may mistrust his judgment, but never 
his motives. We recognize also that in this great temperance 
reformation he is not far from the kingdom. Mistaken as to 
methods, or, rather, too impatient over their slow operation, 
we cannot doubt that his purpose is one single to the end 
which all temperance men desire ; namely, the utter disuse of 
alcohol as a beverage. 



XXI. 

" With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of 
you, or of man's judgment : ... he that judgeth me : is 
the Lord." I COR. iv, 3, 4. 

It would be very strange if three years 
spent in as aggressive a campaign as the pre- 
vious chapters have indicated should not 
awaken most bitter and unsparing criticism 
and censure. This closing chapter may be 
fittingly occupied in presenting a few of the 
very many received. Without them it will be 
impossible to understand the difficulties met 
with and the obstacles which were sur- 
mounted. 

One of the city pastors who aspired to the 
position of champion of the " other side " was 
especially free in his comments. He appeared 
as the advocate and mouth-piece of the infidel 



8o Empty Churches, Hoiv to Fill Them. 

league in their attempts to remove the Bible 
from the public schools. In the height of the 
temperance reform he eloquently exposed the 
" fallacies of total abstinence." His advanced 
and demoralizing sentiments received unspar- 
ing criticism and ridicule. He met argument 
with sneer and publicly advertised the taber- 
nacle services as a " Sunday evening circus." 

A brief quotation from a story written by a 
prominent citizen and published in a city 
paper may prove of interest. 

The story represented a young man who 
had inherited a tendency to nervous disease 
and had been addicted to the use of stimu- 
lants. He had been induced by his sweet- 
heart to sign the pledge and join the reform 
club. When the pamphlet on the " fallacies of 
total abstinence " appeared he was so impressed 
by it that he announced his determination to 
withdraw from the club and practice the gos- 
pel which the preacher had so eloquently ad- 
vocated. His sweetheart induced him, be- 
fore he carried out his determination, to hear 
Mr. Hamilton's reply to the pamphlet. 

" O, Edward, I did trust that you had the 
moral courage to keep your pledge regardless 
of the false teachings of others, however ex- 
alted their position. Your family history 
teaches you that in total abstinence lies your 
only safety. If you yield to the teachings of 



Empty Churches, Hozv to Fill Them. 81 

this false prophet, this Reverend who does not 
preach God's truth, and give up your pledge, 
you will be sure to fall and bring sorrow to the 
hearts that love you, even as — as your poor 
father did, who almost broke your poor moth- 
er's heart." 

In reply to his argument quoted from the 
pamphlet in favor of the moderate and tem- 
perate use of stimulants, she replied : — 

" The temperate use of poisons as a drink ! 
This man of God letting down the bars at 
which opening you are so ready to enter ! O, 
Edward, be a man among men, and do not 
yield your convictions of right so readily at 
the say of any one man, even though he may 
be clothed with the ministerial garb of author- 
ity. He is unworthy of his calling; he is not 
deserving of any following." 

At this moment they reached the hall 
which, as Clara had prophesied, was filled to 
overflowing. As the young defender of tem- 
perance proceeded with his argument, now un- 
raveling some skillfully woven web of sophis- 
try and exposing its inconsistencies, now tak- 
ing the apparently plausible theory of the 
necessity of artificial stimulants, and stripping 
it of its beautiful and attractive vestments and 
exposing its practical workings in all their 
hideous deformity, and, again, bringing to the 
attention of the audience proofs of the 



82 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

strength of his position and his deductions 
from irrefutable sources, Clara stole an occa- 
sional glance at Edward's countenance to see 
if she could tell how he was affected by the 
argument. But as he was apparently too 
deeply interested to notice her she wisely kept 
silent until the lecture closed and they were 
wending their way homeward. 

"Well, Edward, what do you think now?" 
" I think Mr. Hamilton is right and his ar- 
guments irrefutable. I was a blind fool," he 
added, a little bitterly, " to be so led away 
from what I felt in my heart all the time was 
the only safe way ; and yet the arguments of 

Rev. Mr. are plausible ; they are alluring 

to a young man who has no deep settled convic- 
tions on the question of intemperance, and if 
spread broadcast through the State there is no 
telling the amount of injury they may do. 
Many a young man, like myself, being charmed 
by the beauty and eloquence of the language, 
will fail to discover the serpent concealed 
within and be led to follow a course which 
cannot but result in his final ruin. I wish 
every young man in the land could have heard 
the lecture to-night." 

The " Daily Union," in announcing a series 
of sermons to be delivered by the author, upon 
" Methodism," said : " To say the truth we are 
very glad to know that he has reached such 



Empty ChurcJics, How to Fill Them. 83 

calm waters in his morning discourses. There 
is something to admire in the life of a spirit- 
ual Ishmaelite whose hand is against every 
man and every man's hand against him, but 
it must be a severe strain upon one's mental 
and physical nature to sustain so unequal a 
contest." These are the words of the organ 
of "rum and reform," when sober. It would 
be hard to believe that the same paper, unless 
drunken, could contain the following: " The 
Tabernacle pulpit, which is at present set up 
in Smyth's Hall, is the stand from which every 
Sunday evening is dispensed a very weak sort 
of soup compounded of religion, politics, and 
fiction, highly seasoned with vanity and ego- 
tism. It is the only place of amusement open 
on Sunday evening, and is, therefore, usually 
well-filled." 

This called out the following ringing rebuke 
from " The Dispatch," unsolicited and unex- 
pected : — 

For the sake of our city's good name we rejoice that such 
journalism as that sampled above is rare, and also that it is 
con lined to the organ of pro-rum-anti-reform-democracy in 
Mam hestef. When a paper goes out of its way to insult not 
Mr. Hamilton, for he probably cares less for the " Union's" 
criticism than the " Dispatch" does, if possible, but to insult 
the Church and congregation that gathers weekly to listen to 
their pastor, by belittling his efforts, maligning his intentions, 
and deriding his methods of work, is not only unchristian, 
but it is ungentlemanly, uncalled for, and utterly unworthy 
a paper which represents a party so loudly ringing the .changes 



84 Empty Churches, Hozv to Fill Them. 

upon reform as does the Democratic party. A paper that so 
basely truckles to the very worst and lowest elements in so- 
ciety, that decries every effort for the suppression of the crime 
of liquor-selling for the plain reason that it draws largely 
from that source for its support, is deserving of and will 
eventually receive the condemnation of the community. We 
are glad that there is but one paper in Manchester that has 
sunk so low as to be guilty of such a contemptible specimen 
of journalism. 

The unpardonable sin the author committed 
was in not using his influence to turn into an 
independent political channel the tide of tem- 
perance reform and insure the success of the 
party of " rum and reform." He declined not 
only the good advice of the interested politi- 
cians, but the offer of a liberal sum to enter 
the campaign and deliver stump speeches in 
aid of prohibition, to be paid out of the Dem- 
ocratic campaign fund. In the last city elec- 
tion he was solicited by a prominent local pol- 
itician to call a caucus after the complete fiasco 
which followed the attempted organization of 
a citizen's party, with the offer of payment of 
all bills. He declined to sell out for campaign 
expenses. This will explain the following ed- 
itorial moralizing in a report of the prohibitory 
convention : — 

The proceedings show that the smart little pastor of the 
Tabernacle Church in this city got himself well to the front, 
as usual, and with the purpose of bridling and directing the 
convention. He succeeded, in a measure; and those who 
know his management here can easily predict what will be- 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 85 

come of a temperance movement that he bestrides. He has 
successfully ridden into the ground the Prohibitory move- 
ment, and the Reform Club started a year ago in this city, and 
if permitted, will speedily ride the Prohibitory party of the 
State into the same hole. At first his efforts to lead and man- 
age the movements in this city were thought to spring from 
the vanity and self-conceit which are the inherent weaknesses 
of his nature ; but longer and closer observation of his course 
have left little doubt in the minds of many that he is quite as 
much in the service of the Republican party and its political 
managers as he is devoted to his self-aggrandisement. His 
efforts have been effectively directed to support the Repub- 
lican party, and to convince temperance men that they should 
be satisfied with the modicum of prohibition that party finds 
it to its advantage to practice. And his efforts for that party 
have been such as to fairly entitle him to share in the funds 
lodged with the treasurer of the executive committee to be 
placed " where they will do the most good." — Daily Union. 

No word was said in all the three years 
which were so flattering and complimentary 
as those above. They freely acknowledge a 
usefulness and success which exceeded the au- 
thor's most hopeful fancy and desire. These 
words of censure and exaggeration were caught 
up, far and wide, by those who were ignorant 
of the facts, or the character of the revilers. 
Where both were known the most bitter and 
unscrupulous attacks invariably advertised and 
advanced that which they sought to overthrow. 
But that they produced an unfavorable im- 
pression in many minds abroad many things 
have revealed to the author. When, on ac- 
count of the hard times and the cut down in 



86 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

wages the Church, composed almost entirely 
of working people, became financially embar- 
rassed and he sought engagements to lecture in 
the interest of the Church, the following letter 
was received from a brother pastor. The orig- 
inal is carried as a charm against pride and 
vainglory : — 

Dear Sir : — In answer to your circular I would say that in 
my opinion you lack too many of the elements of a man and 
a minister for me to desire you as an instructor of my people. 
The puffs you extract from newspapers indicate great ability, 
but your selection from your own sermon is very flat. There 
is a suspicion abroad that you inspire, if you do not write, 
these pieces in the papers about yourself and your works. 
You are a man of unbounded self-confidence, but whether you 
do more good than harm is a matter on which there may be 
room for doubt and debate. 

Yours, etc., A. G. F. 

Nov., IS 77. 

This work would be incomplete without a 
reference to another attempt, which is a reve- 
lation of indescribable infamy upon the part 
of its originators. During the aggressive cam- 
paign I have briefly sketched, several letters 
were received, purporting to be from love- 
smitten women inviting to a correspondence, 
and pointing plainly to an intrigue if desired. 
They were dismissed as transparent folly at 
the time, but later developments proved them 
to be part of a diabolical plan to compromise 
the author's integrity. He was invited with 
great urgency to visit a woman at a certain 



Empty C J lurches, Hozu to Fill Than. Sy 

place. The locality of the house was of such a 
character as to excite suspicion, but the mes- 
sage, left in his absence, was so urgent it was 
feared it was a case of sickness ; and as it was 
daylight the visit was made. He was received 
in a private room by a woman partially en dis- 
habille. When the reason for the invitation 
was asked she began nervously to talk about 
a remote subject, as if to gain time. The au- 
thor curtly said he was in a hurry, and, failing 
to'get an explanation, in spite of the urgent 
invitations not to be in a hurry, left. It was 
afterward ascertained the woman was the mis- 
tress of a prominent liquor seller. Another 
woman confessed to having been offered fifty 
dollars to pretend sickness and request a visit, 
and compromise the author by actions which 
were to be interrupted by the sudden appear- 
ance of a third party. She indignantly spurned 
the offer with contempt. Another effort was 
made which culminated in an attempt at 
blackmail. The services of a lawyer were se- 
cured and the effort defied. Failing in this, 
the parties made a pretended confession to 
some Methodist preachers, and on the evi- 
dence of a woman of self-confessed vile char- 
acter, the author was arraigned twice and tried 
for immorality. The prosecution was man- 
aged with ingenuity, skill, and the pertinacity 
of the criminal lawyer. Although in an eccle- 



88 Empty ChurcJies, Hoiu to Fill Them. 

siastical trial we reverse the methods and pro- 
cesses of criminal law, and compel the accused 
not only to disprove his guilt but prove his 
innocence beyond a doubt, a unanimous ver- 
dict of acquittal was rendered by both courts 
after a long and searching investigation. 

At the end of his three years' pastorate the 
author was transferred to Maine, and appointed 
to the Hammond-street Church in the city of 
Lewiston. As a result of the adoption of the 
methods herein discussed very considerable 
success has already been realized. The city 
being under the clean and wholesome influence 
of the Maine Law, without an open bar, effort 
has been confined almost entirely to the so- 
called legitimate work of the ministry. Thus, 
robbed of the sensational effects of public con- 
troversy, the work has not varied largely from 
that of the average church. 

A beautiful church situated one side of the 
center of population, with a small congregation 
steadily growing smaller, has been filled so as 
to necessitate seating the gallery for special 
occasions. The regular attendance has been 
doubled and the financial condition revolution- 
ized. At the end of the first year one who 
has had opportunity to ascertain the facts 
writes : — 

He has supplied a church which had very much declined 
spiritually, financially, and numerically ; and by the blessing 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 89 

of God upon his zealous efforts, he has completely resusci- 
tated the Church and brought them to a safe basis ; having 
inspired them with faith in God's providence and confidence 
in themselves. He is very unique as well as original in 
drawing a congregation from the streets, as also in preaching to 
them gospel truth after he gets them to the house of worship." 

A TEMPERANCE ADDRESS * 

Several years ago a little village on the river Rhine 
nestled at the foot of a towering mountain peak. A tourist 
ascending the mountain discovered that the crag over-hang- 
ing the valley was slowly separating from the rest of the 
mountain. He hastened to the village and graphically related 
his discovery and described the impending danger. His 
startling tale was received with " poohs," and shrugs of the 
shoulder. It was an old story. It had lost its terrors. Suc- 
ceeding tourists reported the crevice was slowly but surely 
widening ; still to all suggestions of removal the villagers 
turned a deaf ear. 

Not many months since the daily papers announced with 
startling head-lines that that over-hanging era ghad fallen, 
and the village was buried beneath the avalanche of earth and 
rocks which had been threatening it so long. Many of the 
inhabitants were killed as they endeavored to escape ; many 
others were buried in the ruins of their houses without a mo- 
ment's warning. 

We stand unconcerned to-day face to face with a death- 
dealing disaster far more dangerous than that which over- 
shadowed the little Rhine village. It threatens not one com- 
munity but the whole nation. To all warnings we turn a deaf 
ear. We spurn the zealous alarmist as a noisy hare-brained 
fanatic. That there is danger all admit. We feel the chill 
breath of the coming storm fanning our cheeks. Self-blinded 
as to whence it comes, we make little or no preparation to 
meet its fury. 

* Dclivcrcil at the National Temperance Camp-Meeting at Old Orchard, 
Maine, 1878, in response to Gov. Connor, of Mail/-, 



90 Empty C /lurches, How to Fill Them, 

Depression in trade, stagnation of commerce and paralysis 
of agricultural and mechanical industry are combining to 
create a tempes.t which will overwhelm the nation if we sit 
with folded hands. The crash of crumbling fortunes as 
echoed in the long list of bankruptcies is but the occasional 
lightning flash, the premonition of the nearing storm. 

But a few months ago we caught a glimpse of a black cloud 
faint lined in the horizon, whose dim shadow had power 
to cause the heart-throb to cease, the cheek to pale, and the 
brain to reel. An ignorant railroad brakeman in a remote 
part of the country gave the signal ; in answer, a gaunt spec- 
ter called " the Commune," a hag of foreign birth and hideous 
mien, sprang with a bound as if from the ground full-grown 
and well armed. With the fury and fierce energy of delirium 
or despair it laid its hands upon the great arteries of com- 
mercial life. Reckless men and unsexed women bearing the 
torch and bludgeon thronged the streets of the great cities, 
and boldly attempted to overthrow and revolutionize the 
foundations of social and business life. The iron hand of 
law somewhat tardily crushed out the incipient revolution. 
The evil spirit is overthrown but not cast out. Its scouts and 
sentinels parade and patrol the land, only waiting for a fitting 
opportunity for the completion of its mad and violent schemes. 
Social economists who have had a faint glimmer of the possi- 
bilities of this phenomenon if given a favorable opportunity 
can think of the past but with bated breath, as having con- 
cealed a peril and disaster dark, astounding and unfathoma- 
ble. The Nihilist of Russia, the Socialist of Germany, the 
Communist of France and the Kearneyite of America are the 
stormy petrels riding on the wave ; not the authors but the 
harbingers of approaching danger. The most inexperienced 
landsman, when he sees the distant lightning's gleam, and 
hears the faint mutter of thunder, and feels the white caps 
rising under the freshening breeze and beating the vessel's 
side, knows a storm is brewing ; but he has learned only 
what the barometer told the captain and the instinct of the 
Bailor discovered long ago. The barometer has been agitated 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 91 

for years. The keen instinct of those few gifted souls which 
God gives every generation, who with the ken of the seer 
grasp in the twinkling of an eye the portents of the future 
and write its mysteries in letters of living light, have long 
poured their gloomy prophecies in our unwilling ears. The 
masses, generally careless and thoughtless of future safety or 
danger, are beginning to manifest a strange and mysterious 
uneasiness. Our leaders are unable to avert the danger, be- 
cause either ignorantly or intentionally they mistake its 
source. 

The Republican says : "There is danger in the air, but it 
is not of my making. The black clouds which seem to shade 
the horizon are but the smoke clouds of the battle-field, 
where we have just saved the nation from rebels and Demo- 
crats. They will disperse, and we will have a clear sky if 
we can only keep out of power our opponents, who are re- 
sponsible for the danger. ,J 

The Democrat paints with. vivid colors the possibilities of 
the wide-reaching disaster which threatens to engulf us, and 
unsparingly denounces it as the direct product of radical ras- 
cality. A complete change of crew from captain to deck- 
hand will alone enable us to escape the hidden reefs and make 
the safe harbor. 

The Greenbacker comes shouting himself hoarse with de- 
light at his discovery of a panacea for the blasting curse of 
political corruption and selfish monopoly ; he urgently advo- 
cates sending into the clouds a hot-air paper balloon to draw 
the teeth of the threatening hurricane. 

To a certain extent each is right and, at the same time, all 
are wrong. The cause alleged by each has contributed very 
materially to the danger in view, 1 nit only secondarily. The 
primal plain none but the self-blinded can fail 

Take the drink curse oul of politics, oul of busk 
ness, and OUl of social life and yon have gone fat toward the 
final solution of all these vexing problems, 

Doyon seek purity in public affairs ? Do you desire to 
make impossible the corruption that now renders our name 



92 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

a by-word of reproach ? Divorce the bar-room and the bal- 
lot-box. 

Do you want to be able to say to the hurricane now agitat- 
ing the business world, " Peace, be still ? " remove the an- 
tagonism and competition between the saloon and the manu- 
factory by annihilating the former. 

Do you wish to find the clue to the solution of the labor 
problem, and at the same time strangle the commune as you 
would the cub of a man-eating tiger ? Plug up the rum- 
cask, bung-hole and spigot. 

If the rum power grows in influence the next quarter of a 
century as it has in the past we shall have good reason to 
fear for our national safety. The perpetuity of free institu- 
tions is impossible with ten open bars for every church. In 
politics this influence is almost omnipresent and omnipotent. 
It is the most important factor in\ our State and national 
politics. Each party bids energetically for its support. It 
dares dictate party measures ; it not only demands party 
nominations, but obtains them. It either holds the balance 
of power or practically controls the majority of the voters of 
our great centers of population. 

Secretary Bristow won a great reputation by his energetic 
and persistent attempts to throttle the whisky ring. In his 
victory he won a defeat. The smoke has lifted and we are 
surprised to find so few slain. The convicted criminals were 
pardoned and are now powerful political factors. Bristow 
obtained his reward in the national convention of his party. 
He missed the presidential nomination ; had he obtained it 
he would inevitably have been defeated. No man can be 
elected to an important national office who has the hatred of 
the rum power. Party fealty rests but lightly and party 
principles and nominations must stand aside when the traffic 
is in danger. The justiceship of the Supreme Court of the 
United States passed the doughty reformer by to fall into the 
hands of his unknown law-partner. The brilliant record of 
Bristow is only a fleeting memory, and he is as surely dead 
and buried politically as either Colfax or Belknap, 



Empty CJiurchcs, Hoiv to Fill TJicm. 93 

After a long and bloody war to decide the question of State 
or Federal supremacy, what is the source of the reopening of 
the settled question. in less than half a generation? The il- 
licit distillery of South Carolina. We are so soon permitted 
to behold the inspiring spectacle of a State judiciary defying 
the national authority in behalf of the rascally moonshiners 
of the Palmetto State. 

There is an old story that a man was given a small box in 
which was confined an evil spirit. In answer to its pleading 
he partially opened the box, and out of it sprang a giant 
which seemed to fill the earth. We have uncorked the rum- 
bottle, and from it has sprung a phantom whose shadow 
darkens the skies, and whose tread shakes the world. We 
are now engaged in the solution of the problem how to kill 
this old rum-devil and cork up the little ones. 

Is this evil influence so dominant in the business world as 
the temperance fanatics allege? Political economists are 
strangely puzzled to account for the hard times. It is not the 
result of political corruption, as we hear shouted in every 
campaign. Political reform would no more remedy the evil 
than to toss a straw in the air would turn back the tide of a 
north-east gale. It is not the result of inflated or contracted 
currency. Financial tinkering would no more root out this 
evil than the breath of a baby would sweeten the miasmatic 
air which hovers over a stagnant swamp. The immense in- 
crease in every branch of our national resources plainly says 
they are not exhausted. Our agricultural products are almost 
beyond computation ; our mines and fisheries, the manufac- 
turing and mechanical industries, the various branches of 
trade and commerce have increased in far greater ratio than 
our population. There is an immense leakage somewhere, 
is the only intelligent answer to the perplexing question. 
We are taking our vast resources and with them trying to fill 
a bottomless pit. Were it not for our almost infinite fertility we 
should have become bankrupt long ago. Were the immense 
stream of money, worse than wasted for intoxicating liquors, 
diverted into legitimate channels of industry, imagination 



94 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

Could scaixe picture the reality of the transformation that 
would be wrought. The demand it Mould create would send 
a thrill of life to every part of the land. Huts would blos- 
som into cottages, hamlets into villages, towns into cities, 
ragged and famine-stricken families would revolutionize the 
dry goods and groceiy trade. To supply these ever-increas- 
ing demands would fill the flapping sails of our idle ships 
until their white wings would dot every sea. The hum of ma- 
chinery would be heard day and night until new buildings 
could be erected ; lands now idle and unproductive would 
smile with bounteous harvests to supply the increased food 
demand. All this would open a myriad of opportunities for 
remunerative labor to the industrious who now lament their 
enforced idleness. The wildest dream of fancy could scarcely 
equal the possibilities of a nation, as enterprising and indus- 
trious as ours, enjoying the varied and inexhaustible resources 
so lavishly poured into our laps if from the throat of our 
prosperity were taken away the iron hand of the rum-devil. 
Nothing short of the utter annihilation of the liquor-traffic, 
root and branch, will give permanent relief. 

We are met here with the objection, urged with enormous 
statistics and specious arguments, that the business we seek 
to destroy is a legitimate one, with an immense capital in- 
vested, and furnishing employment to several hundred thou- 
sand laborers. A careful examination of labor statistics 
proves that if this immense capital were invested in any le- 
gitimate industry its employing capacity for labor would be 
increased many fold ; but, aside from this, is it a legitimate 
business and entitled to protection ? 

A thrill of sympathy flashed through the land at the great 
conflagrations in Portland, Boston, Chicago, and St. Johns. 
It is a terrible thing for a great city to be destroyed by fire ; 
but what is that compared to the devastation of a nation? 
Suppose an army were to sweep over this land, pillaging and 
destroying until there was not a single building left standing ; 
our villages, towns, and cities but heaps of smoldering 
ruins : until there was not a single shop or factory ; not an 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. g$ 

agricultural or mechanical implement or product. Were 
such a disaster to visit this or any other land it would not 
impoverish or cripple it as does the liquor traffic. In finan- 
cial waste alone every ten years this business costs as much 
as the entire destruction of a devastating army which should, 
sweep bare the earth. The army would only affect our mate- 
rial interests ; the liquor traffic in addition paralyzes our 
moral energies. When Portland, Boston and Chicago were 
in ashes they still existed in the warm hearts, keen brains 
and indomitable wills of the men who had built them and 
who could rebuild them, as they have done. A universal 
conflagration would leave the health and strength of the peo- 
ple unimpaired to retrieve the disaster; the liquor traffic, in 
addition to all the fearful devastion it works, saps the vitality 
of the people and renders it less and less possible ever to 
regain the lost ground. 

When Chicago was in flames we Were horror-stricken to 
learn there were men so infamous as to seek to spread the 
conflagration to obtain opportunity to plunder. We felt a 
grim satisfaction at the announcement that summary pun- 
ishment was visited upon the miscreants. Our indignation 
reaches white heat when face to face with this fearful curse ; 
to find men claiming to be patriots, good citizens, moral, up- 
right men, aye. Christians, pecuniarily interested in this joy- 
blighting, soul-damning evil. 

Yonder is a gallant ship, weather-beaten, wave-battered, 
driven in the teeth of a furious gale in the dangerous neigh- 
borhood of reefs and shoals. Amid the roaring of the sea 
and the shrill whistling of the wind you can hear the cannon 
signaling distress. Yonder, upon a rocky, jutting headland, 
is a bonfire flashing out into the darkness, just lit by the 
wrecker's torch. The exhausted and unsuspecting seamen 
are lured by the deceitful gleam upon the hidden rocks. A 
crash, a hoarse, despairing shriek borne faintly upon the wind 
tell you the tragedy is ended. A noble ship dashed to 
pieces, a valuable cargo destroyed, a score of souls hurled 
into eternity, that the dastardly miscreants, villains, might 



96 Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

gather up the fragments that may float ashore. To your in- 
dignant rebuke, the wrecker replies with a leer : — 

" I am a good citizen. I pay my taxes. I support my 
family. I am generous and warm-hearted. 1 am a Chris- 
tian. If I did not light the bonfire some one else would." 

Wrecking is denounced and punished by the civilized 
world as one of the most despicable of crimes ; and yet it is 
paled into tenderness and pity when compared to the heartless 
atrocity and fiendish malignity of the land-pirate who wrecks 
not the body but the soul. By legal enactment, by the crea- 
tion of public sentiment, it is sought to recognize this crime 
of crimes as a legitimate industry. 

In the name of God and outraged humanity I ask, " Is a 
tax receipt a license to murder your brother and plunder and 
outrage his helpless family ? " We are told again and again 
these men are liberal ; yes, but it is the liberality of the high- 
wayman who tosses a crumb to the starving children of his 
victim whom he has assassinated and robbed. They are gen- 
erous ; but it is the generosity of the chicken thief who robs 
the hen-roost to send the Gospel to the heathen. They are 
warm-hearted ; but it is to clasp hands in pretended friend- 
ship to find opportunity to cut the throat. Joabdike, they 
caress and stab at the same time. Of all crimes that 
curse the earth this takes the precedence. Compared to it 
horse-stealing is a virtue and burglary, piety. To poison the 
water springs, or to spread contagious disease, even in time of 
war to harass the enemy pillaging your house, is a capital 
crime. Worse than piracy, wrecking, breeding foul conta- 
gion, poisoning wells of water — aye, than all combined — is the 
business which blasts the reputation, curses the life, and 
damns the soul. Now ask, if you dare, is it a legitimate in- 
dustry, worthy of sympathy or fostering care. He who en- 
gages in it should be an outlaw whose place of honor is the 
pillory, and whose fitting reward is the halter. 

Doubtless there are many who will say, " Keep cool ; do not 
call hard names. Rum-sellers are men. You can only win 
them by kind acts and gentle words." 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them, gj 

If your next-door neighbor kept chained in his yard a dog 
in the advanced stages of hydrophobia, and should, by the 
offer of sweatmeats, coax your little child within the reach of 
the venomous fangs of the brute, how many kind words 
would you lavish upon the wretch who would seek to prevent 
you rescuing your child ? 

You would save the child if you had to kill both dog and 
master to do it. Not only the world, but God would justify 
you in doing so. I saw an illustration of Western life which 
is expressive of the politeness and courtesy necessary to per- 
suade these land-pirates. The first picture represented a 
burglar standing upon a ladder, about to begin his operations 
upon a window, when the window was raised and the owner 
thrust a huge revolver in the face of his midnight visitor, 
simply saying, " You get." The other picture represented 
the burglar, having leaped to the ground and, dropping every 
thing, running for dear life, replying to the curt command 
he had just received, "You bet." The dialogue was brief 
but expressive. I hope to live to see the day when this inci- 
dent will find its counterpart in our dealing with the liquor 
traffic. We shall simply say, " You get ;" these robbers may 
say what they please, but they will have to obey. Who wants 
to use kind words to an incendiary ? If you find him prowling 
around your house seeking to destroy your property, and may 
be the lives of your family, he need not whine if when 
your hand is extended toward him it is clinched, and 
in it a club to break his head. The time is coming when we 
shall see it is right and just not only to attempt the annihila- 
tion of this evil but the extermination of the vile wretches 
engaged in propagating it. For the unhappy victims we feel 
the deepest commiseration. No pains should be spared and 
no means left untried to raise them from their fallen condi- 
tion and bring them back to virtue and sobriety. Moral 
suasion, backed by the warm heart and friendly hand, is the 
only power that will save them. But for the man who with 
smiles and friendly words leads the deluded soul over the 
bottomless pit and hurls him in, to make a dime, we have no 
7 



9$ Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 

tears to shed, no kind words to waste. He is not to be en- 
treated ; he is to be suppressed, is the voice of reason and 
the voice of God. 

We read with kindling zeal of the days of knight-errantry, 
when men based heroism upon duty to God, devotion to right, 
and defense of the weak. We may well ask, " Why may not 
the golden age of knightly deeds for God, and truth, and the 
oppressed be again revived?'* It already exists. The only 
want is more chivalrous knights to enter the lists. 

The foe is the source of crime ; the parent of pauperism ; 
the panderer and procurer to vice and disease ; its blighting 
presence is seen and felt in every department of life. It de- 
files the halls of legislature ; the senate chamber has been 
invaded by it and made the scene of drunken debauchery. 
In our courts of justice it bedraggles the judicial ermine and 
stains the hands of those to whom is committed the protec- 
tion of the most sacred rights of the citizen. It beslimes the 
pulpit, and leads captive the Church of God in wicked com- 
plicity with its hellish schemes. She shares the blood money 
and builds her altars with the price of souls. It enters our 
homes and extinguishes the light of joy and hope. Wives 
and children worse than widows and orphans, gaunt with the 
famine of soul and body, bemoan their sad lot with tearless 
eyes because the fountain of grief has been impoverished. 

To-day the voice of God is calling for volunteers, not to a 
holiday excursion ; not to a dress parade ; not to a sham 
fight ; but to a real battle-field. The contest may be long 
and fierce. The enemy is strong and determined. Battle 
after battle may end in defeat, but those who fight with God 
against sin always win. 

During the late war, at perhaps its most critical stage, one 
of our armies was holding a very important position. It was 
attacked by the enemy in overwhelming numbers in the ab- 
sence of the commander in chief. Hearing of the battle he 
sprang to his horse and rode to the front with might and main. 
His army, although stubbornly contesting every inch, were 
slowly but surely being driven from the field. Their line 



Empty Churches, How to Fill Them. 99 

wavered, broke, and began a hurried retreat. The broken 
and demoralized ranks were soon met by a dust-stained horse- 
man, riding at full speed a steed flecked with foam. As the 
soldiers caught a glimpse of the well-known figure, a shout 
ran down the line — 

" Hurrah ! Sheridan has come ! Sheridan has come ! " 

M The first that the General saw were the groups 
Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops ; 
What was done ? What to do ? A glance told him both, 
Then striking his spurs, with a terrible oath, 
He dashed down the line 'mid a storm of huzzahs, 
And the wave of retreat checked its course there, because 
The sight of the master compelled it to pause.' 1 

A few nervous words of command and the broken ranks 
closed up. Under the inspiration of his fiery leadership the 
defeated army fell upon the enemy like a living thunderbolt, 
driving them before them like dry leaves before an autumn 
gale. The rout became a triumph. In the travail of defeat 
was the birth of victory. That ride has been made immortal 
on canvas and in song As we read or hear it, our veins 
tingle, and we can scarce refrain from joining in the enthusi- 
astic shout of the poet-artist : — 

11 Hurrah ! hurrah for Sheridan ! 
Hurrah ! hurrah for horse and man ! " 

It was not the one that turned the tide of battle and saved 
the day ; it was by the faith of the many that the leader held 
victory in his grasp. 

We may be overwhelmed in the conflict that awaits us ; we 
may be driven, little by little, from every vantage ground un- 
til, our ranks broken and utterly routed, we are retreating 
from the field. If then by faith we can hear the thundering 
hoofs of the war-horse bearing to our rescue the Captain of 
our salvation, and can shout that inspiring war-cry which has 
thrilled and nerved the soul of the Christian warrior in every 
age, "Christ has come! Christ has come!" we can renew 
the struggle and snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat. 



ioo Empty Churches, Hoiv to Fill Them. 

With Christ to lead and inspire us we cannot be overcome, 
though all hell oppose. 

" Worlds are changing ; heaven beholding ; 
Thou hast but an hour to fight ; 
Now the blazoned cross unfolding, 
On, right onward to the fight ! 

On ! Let all the soul within you 

For the truth's sake go abroad ; 
Strike ! let every nerve and sinew 

Tell on ages— tell for God." 



APPENDIX. 



" HAPS AND MISHAPS." 

A tale of clerical life, illustrating a minister's experience with 
typical Churches. It was first written as a lecture ; after 
being delivered a number of times with very flattering 
success it was rewritten, and enlarged, and published as 
a serial in the " Saturday Night Dispatch," Manchester, 
N. H. It will soon be published in book form after 
a thorough and careful revision. We append a few 
notices. 

He proved himself a prince among story-tellers and fairly 
riveted the attention of his audience. Nor is the lecture de- 
void of solid worth, while its high moral tone is calculated to 
do good, and commend him to the more sober part of the com- 
munity. — Rev. Moses T. Runnels, Pastor of the Congrega- 
tional C/iurc/i, Sanbornton, (A 7 ". //.) 

The lecture was unique and racy. In describing the experi- 
ences of his hero he seemed to create a picture gallery for 
his audience. His characters were sketched with a bold 
hand, and some of them were placed in an intense light ; yet 
they were so true to life, we could almost call them by name 
as they were placed before us. — Lecture Committee, A r ewlntry- 
port, {Mass.) 

The story is a humorous delineation of the haps and mis- 
haps which befell an itinerant Methodist preacher through 
several years' wanderings, told in Rev. Mr. Hamilton's hap- 
piest vein. liut though full of broad and genial humor, there 



1 02 Appendix. 

are chapters which cannot he read without a tear of sympathy 
at the vivid portrayal of some of life's keenest sufferings ; and 
throughout the whole story there is an underlying tone of re- 
monstrance at the thousand-and-one petty annoyances to 
which an itinerant is needlessly, but all too frequently, sub- 
jected at the hands of officious intermeddlers, whose desire to 
run the machine is ofttimes stronger than their love of peace 
and harmony, or their hopes of heaven. 

The comments of the press, wherever portions of the story 
have been read in public, have been flattering ; and a Congre- 
gational clergyman of this State who is familiar with a portion 
of it pronounces the story " more humorous and likely to 
be more popular than Murray's ' Deacons.' " — Saturday 
Night Dispatch, Manchester, (N. H.) 



LECTURES. 

Rev. J. Benson Hamilton has lectured several hundred 
times in various parts of the country, his subjects are : 

1. Every-day Heroism. 

2. My Wife and I. 

We select a few of the many notices which have been re- 
ceived. 

Gen. Natt. Head, now Governor, says : — 

I take great pleasure in recommending Mr. Hamilton ; 
having heard him deliver several eloquent and interesting 
lectures, I consider we have but few his superior as a lecturer. 

Gov. Smyth, the "War Governor," and Vice-President of 
the National Soldiers' Home, says : — 

Mr. Hamilton is a gentleman of great popularity wherever 
he is known. I cordially recommend him as an entertaining 
and instructive lecturer. 



Appendix. 1 03 

It was a very superior entertainment, popular, practical, 
and satisfactory to all. This superb lecture was quite equal to 
those delivered by imported talent costing from one to two 
hundred dollars. — Rev. J. B. Robinson, Rres't. Tilton Sem- 
inary, (N. H) 

For an hour and a quarter he held the attention of every 
one present as if spell-bound. His voice is clear and musical, 
his manner pleasing and natural, and the lecture itself, while 
sparkling with wit and humor, was crowded with truth of 
the greatest practical importance. He won golden opinions 
from all who had the pleasure of listening to him. — Ncwbury- 
port Daily Herald, (Mass.) 

Among the lecturers of New England he occupies a fore- 
most position. He possesses in an abundant measure the 
elements which constitute popularity, while under all is an 
earnestness of purpose that gives firmness and force to his 
efforts. — Zion's Herald, Boston, (Mass.) 

He has perfect articulation, good style of delivery, and 
possesses rare powers of description and mimicry. His vivac- 
ity and versatility enable him to enchain his audience from 
beginning to end. His style of oratory and native ability can- 
not fail to win for him a reputation of no low degree. — 
Coshocton Democrat, (Ohio.) 

The audience was large and appreciative. The lecture was 
the most interesting of the course, and was closely listened to 
and heartily enjoyed by those present. This lecture was de- 
livered several years ago with marked success, but has been 
rewritten, and last evening it was presented in an entirely 
new dress. — Manchester Daily Mirror, (N. II.) 

I consider it one the best lectures I every heard. Its wit 
keeps an audience convulsed with laughter, and it enables 
them the better to appreciate the bits of wisdom and practical 
lessons which are interspersed so judiciously and eloquently. 
A lecture must be amusing and instructive to be successful, 



104 Appendix. 

" My Wife and I " is a skilled combination of these two char- 
acteristics. — Col. Chas. H. Taylor t Editor Boston Daily 
Globe, (Mass) 

The third lecture in the Hammond-street course was given 
by Rev. J. Benson Hamilton. The house was crowded. The 
subject, " My Wife and I," scarcely comprehends all thegood 
things woven into the lecture, which was brimming with sound 
facts, and mirth-provoking humor, relating to love, courtship 
and marriage. It depicted many of the vagaries, delusions, 
and inconsistencies attending upon these three conditions in 
life, and gave an allopathic dose of good wholesome advice to 
those who were in either condition or contemplated entering 
such, besides several telling thrusts at those whose love ex- 
perience is so remote a thing of the past that they cynically 
ridicule its symptoms in others of a more tender age. The lect- 
ure was greeted with the greatest delight, and evidently hit 
home to the consciousness of many a young and old person 
present. — Lewiston Daily Journal, (Me.) 



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